Without Precedence
by therewithasmile
Summary: Soulmates UA: To her own mortification, Kara Zor-El's mating mark had only been active once, when she was on Daxam as a child with her parents for a business trip. But then, the DEO finds a Kryptonian pod. And there's someone inside it. But he's not Kryptonian, and her marking is suddenly active again. And she's not happy about it, not one bit. / KaraMel, diverges from canon.
1. Chapter 1

So this started because of the most recent episode, and I've been DYING to write after I hadn't for nearly months. This was my stress relief and a way to outlet some of my pent up emotions. I'm mostly making this up as I go, but I wanted to add some new dynamics and explore how a predetermined relationship would affect them, seeing as they definitely don't want to be together as rival planets.

Anyways, I won't hold you back: enjoy! Please comment and let me know your thoughts.

I'm also on tumblr, if you'd like to follow me there! Same handle.

 **...**

 _ **W** ithout **P** recedence_

 ** _..._**

 _A hiss erupted from her lips and her hand flew to the other, gripping hard at the white-hot pain that suddenly flared from the marks etched into her skin._

 _"Honey?"_

 _Kara Zor-El looked up, meeting her mother's concerned gaze. Several thoughts fly through her mind: this wasn't right. Does she tell the truth? What would her mother think? Would she even be allowed this? Above all, who was it?_

 _But she swallowed the thoughts, pushed down the sudden guilt at the realization what this burning meant._

 _"It's nothing, mom."_

 _Her mother's cascade blue gaze softened, but something in her tone told Kara that she didn't quite believe her daughter. "Must be Daxam air. I don't blame you, honey, I hate these trips just as much as you do." She let a heavy sigh blow from her lips. "As does your father, too. But you know us, and you know him, as part of House Zor-El—"_

 _"—We have a duty to Krypton and our star's relations," Kara parroted back. Her mother gave another sympathetic smile; she merely shrugged her shoulders up and down. "It's nothing, Mom, I'll be fine when I leave."_

 _"I told Zor-El to wait a couple more years before bringing you," her mother responded ruefully, before extending her reach to her daughter. Kara stared at the open invitation, before stuffing her right palm into her pocket. She then took her mother's hand, and she said nothing more about the glowing red emblem emblazoned against her skin._

 **...**

Kara Zor-El kicked her door open. With a groan, she peeled off her suit from her body, grimacing when the material didn't seem to want to part from her skin. She left the mess of blue and red on the floor and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water wash the grime and sweat from her torso. She then tilted her hair back, letting the water work away at her long blonde tresses. A good lathering, rinse, and tight towel wrap later, and Kara stepped around the pile of material and into her living room, plopping herself graciously on her couch.

She didn't really care about what was on TV, but it was some rom-com, direct-to-TV movie that played on whichever channel she happened to have been watching last. The noise was comforting, a wash of sound to keep her company as she sat back and picked at her nails.

Briefly, she observed the marking on her hand – an elaborate and intricate web of interwoven markings; the design unique to just her.

If anyone had asked, she had called it a tattoo. A memento from her rebellious phase, she'd say with a big smile that she hoped would convince whomever asked – and she often would have to step on Alex's foot before her sister objected. It didn't matter anyways, what the tattoo's origin was; being on Earth and after all that's happened, its purpose was rendered obsolete.

So, really, it was just a tattoo.

Kara realized she was rubbing at it subconsciously. She scrunched her nose as she dropped her hands, her eyes just managing to catch the two lead actors in whatever movie she was watching suddenly kiss – and it steadily got fiercer and fiercer, and Kara clicked away to the news. There she was again, up close, a beautiful shot catching the bus that had been flung from the impact of an explosion. Her shoulders still hurt from the phantom weight of the vehicle, as her TV-self lowered the bus back onto the road with poise. Nice, she thought, before she turned off the TV altogether.

 **...**

When she woke up the next day, Kara didn't know why, but something just didn't feel right.

Something pricked along her spine, an odd foreboding that she didn't quite understand. But Kara had faith in her instincts, so as she pulled a shirt over her head and slipped on a skirt, she glanced at her hand. The marks were jet black, the same as they'd always been, for almost all her life.

Impossible.

And it was, as she followed her usual morning routine: running out the door before running back in to pick up some paperwork for Cat Grant; gripping her favourite bagel and latte in her grip as she speed-walked through National City's bustling street traffic; tapping her foot as she waited for the (public) elevator to ascend approximately fifty floors to the main office; presenting her offerings to Cat as the woman stepped out of her (private) one. A brief nod and yet another mispronunciation of her name later, and Kara sank into her office chair, drew the stacks of paperwork toward her, and began to read each file over with increasing boredom.

She didn't know how much time passed, but the sound of a throat being cleared caused Kara to shoot straight up, only to meet Cat's searing gaze.

"Oh my god, I was just—"

"—drifting off into space, I presume," Cat responded, though her tone wasn't quite as icy as Kara had expected. "That on your hand, is that Henna?"

Kara stiffened and dragged her gaze to her right hand.

Shit.

She had forgotten to wear a glove.

Kara had adopted that habit since she had begun working – such an obvious etching on her hand raised eyebrows, and with that, many other questions. She personally didn't think that it should matter – after all, such tattoos had always been customary on Krypton at the very least – so to hear that something as ridiculous as body markings being a reason to not be employed was always somewhat lost to her, even when she grew up immersed in Earth culture.

She shrugged. "Yes?"

Cat's eyebrow raised. "You never did strike me as someone who would go through a rebellious phase, Kira."

A nervous laugh bubbled from her lips. "Well you know me, Miss Grant…" Her boss only 'mhm'ed, entirely unconvinced. Kara sighed. "My hand's been bothering me. I think I've been developing a rash, really, so I didn't want to, uh, cover it up."

Cat's gaze grew a tad more sympathetic. "Foundation, my dear. And let's hope that your 'rash' can't spread through your grip and into my latte." And with that, her boss spun on her heels and reentered her office, and Kara merely melted into her chair, wishing the ground would reach up and swallow her whole.

Several more moments passed before her eyes caught a flurry of movement. Not to be caught off-guard again, she straightened and met Winn's eyes this time. He glanced down at the markings. "Wicked," he said. "I've never seen one in person."

"A tattoo?" Kara asked incredulously.

"No, a – you know." Kara merely raised an eyebrow. Winn sighed. "You know I do my research Kara, don't try to pull the rebellious phase thing with me."

Right. She had to give Winn credit where due, Kara supposed. "If you wanted to see it, you just had to ask."

"Oh? I was under the impression that your marking was… well," Winn rubbed the back of his neck. "Personal. Isn't it?"

"Maybe it used to be," Kara said quietly. "But since I'm one of two Kryptonians left, this is pretty much last one. So really, it is just a tattoo now." She held up her hand. "Do you want to see it?"

She didn't miss the excitement in Winn's eyes as he reached for her. "Amazing," he muttered as he held it closer. "What I wouldn't give for a skin sample – I know, I know," he added hastily. "It's not like anything we can do can really cut you to begin with. But still, the implications…" Kara stared at him, just long enough until he caught his words and backtracked. "Right. Basically a tattoo."

She cleared her throat. "It's not that I resent it. It's an inherent part of Kryptonian culture, and it reminds me of home." She withdrew her hand from his grasp, staring at the interlaced black lines that decorated her skin. "But it also reminds me that there isn't that person for me anymore."

"Right," Winn said, almost ruefully – and Kara remembered with a force that Winn had once had feelings for her. But he caught her eyes with his own, before waving it all away. "I get it, I do. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry Kara."

Kara lowered her gaze. She took a moment to breathe, to give a quick exhale before adjusting her glasses. "Well, that was more than thirteen years ago. It's okay – really. It just, feels weird today. Maybe I'm just going crazy."

"Well, uh," Winn dropped the volume of his talking as he leaned in, palms flat against her desk. "I did hear that the DEO has something for us when we get back." He straightened and shrugged. "Maybe it has something to do with your hand."

Kara shrugged. "I mean, unless another Kryptonian showed up, with the exact same tattoo on the back of their hand, I highly doubt it. But I guess that's a possibility. Even though it's a really, really small one."

 **...**

Maybe she was just imagining it, but she swore her hand was positively vibrating the entire way to the DEO. Kara wished that Winn had never put that stupid idea in her mind in the first place; she was almost certain if he hadn't said anything, this flight would be the same as any other. She shook herself from her thoughts as she landed with a thud, striding into the office with her cape bellowing behind her. Her sister marched up to her as she descended the stairs, matching her pace as she began to speak quickly to fill her in. "We found something you might be interested in, it's been ID'd as Kryptonian but they have to double check – Kara, your hand-!"

"I know Alex," Kara said as patiently as she could. "It's been feeling weird so I'm not wearing the glove, but it's fine, don't worry."

Alex merely nodded brusquely before continuing. "So it just landed overnight, it took an team to extract the pod over to the DEO and-"

"-Wait. Pod?"

Alex only mhm'd. Kara froze, and her sister nearly raced past her before realizing she had stopped. "Yeah, Kara, a pod."

At least fifteen emotions raced through Kara at once. Maybe that was what her hand was reacting to – another one of her kind, that wasn't Kal-El who had his own mark he promptly ignored, also because he wasn't taught the significance. But she knew, and her hand vibrations suddenly seemed a lot more real now, and it was as if the sensation slowed down and became sharper, a tangible prickling now as opposed to a buzz.

"Show me," she heard herself say instead.

She watched Alex's mouth spread into a smile; Kara supposed her excitement (and nervousness) was contagious, as her sister clamped her hand around her wrist and dragged her to further into the facility. With each growing step, Kara felt like her and her hand were separate entities. She was excited, and so was the mark, or maybe she really was imagining things, until she reached the pod.

It was Kryptonian, almost exactly like her own. She placed her left hand against the metal, and she could feel the same smooth texture that Earth's metal couldn't quite emulate beneath her fingertips. She sipped a serrated breath as she dragged her hand along the surface and she ignored how her right hand prickled with anticipation, as if begging for a turn as well.

"Kara," boomed J'onn's voice from behind her. She spun around to meet the disguised Martian and Winn. While the latter rushed forward with a quiet yip of excitement, the former too had as happy an expression the Martian could spare – while it wasn't quite a broad smile like Alex sported, the curve of his mouth was enough for her. "I see you've seen our visitor."

"I have," Kara responded, unable to contain her giddiness.

"Well, we can also open it, you know."

With a bit of a squeak, she grasped for her sister's hand. Finding purchase, she squeezed – maybe a bit too hard, as Alex hissed a soft ow at her grip, but the DEO agent's smile mirrored her own.

"Kryptonian, Kara," Winn called from his spot by the pod, not that she needed a human identify the technology that was her own, "I might be right after all."

"Just open the pod," she responded playfully, and Winn complied.

With a hiss, the pod split in half, lifting with a gust of air as the spacecraft released its hatch. Three things happened at once, Winn yelped, Alex gasped, and Kara's hand seared.

And with a sudden drop in her stomach, Kara realized she knew this feeling.

"I was right, Kara, I was right – you so owe me at least two drinks, small chance my ass, look it's a – why are you looking at your hand?"

But Kara wasn't listening to Winn anymore. She had let go of her sister's hand as soon as the white-hot pain began, and, with sinking dread, she knew what it meant. Oh Gods, she had forgotten, but now, it all came rushing back.

Alex was the first to respond. "Kara, your hand – it's glowing."

From the corner, a small 'oh' came from J'onn as he surely read her mind.

And Winn chattered on, "wait, your hand is glowing? Doesn't that mean – oh my god Kara, you owe me at least four drinks, and a pizza –"

Kara tuned him out. Yes, it was true: the designs were glowing, the pain three times as powerful at this sudden turn of events, for it had been so long since her hand had felt this way, that there was any feeling in it at all. Sure, it had only burned once like this before, but in the presence of other Kryptonians, it had always felt something. As if she was connected to life itself, like all Kryptonians around her, to her cousin – and it had gone almost 13 years completely silent. But it wasn't just buzzing, it was burning, and she knew why it burned, whom it burned for.

And it was possibly the last person she wanted.

"That's not a Kryptonian, Winn," she murmured.

The brunette paused midsentence, blinking owlishly. And then he seemed to regain his voice. "Wait, but I thought you said that those were Kryptonian markings, you know – mating marks, so, through deduction, of course, this has to be a Kryptonian."

Alex's head had whipped back to her, but Kara couldn't bear to look her sister in the eye. "No, you're right Winn."

He blinked again. "I'm confused."

Kara swallowed, feeling the lump that had suddenly developed ride up and down. "I mean, you're right about the markings. To find your mate. But you made one made one major mistake. But you also wouldn't have known."

Winn cocked his head to the side, Alex drew very still, and J'onn quietly left the room.

Kara took an unsteady breath.

"They're not exclusively Kryptonian. Other cultures have them too after all, but there's never been a case of interspecies marks lining up. Well," Kara hesitated. "Except one."

She raised her gaze to meet her best friend's, and then her sister's, before she dropped her gaze back to the man in stasis in the pod. Revulsion had already gathered at her throat, despite what her tattoo was trying to dictate her otherwise, and she couldn't quite manage to keep the venom out of her voice.

"He's not a Kryptonian; he's a Daxamite."


	2. Chapter 2

_My reading week (spring break) is over now, so updates I guarantee will not be as fast as this during my regular schedule._

 _I'm also altering a few other things for the sake of the fic. Mainly, I'm making up some of the languages, as well as probably altering some events. You'll see em as you read along._

 _Thank you to those of you (about 4?) who looked over this chapter to make sure Kara was still in character. You guys rock!_

 ** _..._**

"Daxamite?" Winn repeated, his eyebrow arching.

The very word shook Kara to the core. She can sense Alex's surprise from her side, the way she too recoiled at the very thought like it was her own. It made sense, since the last time Kara had spoken about her neighbor species, it had been during Danvers' Storytime, all those years ago, when she and her sister would cuddle up by the fireplace, hugging pillows and drinking hot chocolate.

And there he was before them, this Daxamite stranger, unaware as usual to his surroundings, entirely ignorant of what was unfolding beyond his unconscious body.

"Daxamite," Kara said, her voice stale and cold. "They're… they're the garbage of the universe."

Winn blinked again. "Well I mean, you've faced some pretty garbage people in the past, I don't think he quite compar-"

" _-Amongst_ the garbage of the universe, then –"

"- Alex," Winn cut in desperately, "help me out here."

Her sister merely shrugged. "Honestly? Kara's right, from what she's told me."

Winn's gaze panned from one Danvers to another, questions brimming in his eyes. Kara hardly paid attention to that, though, as she continued staring at the stranger nestled in _her_ people's pod. She suddenly felt dirty, invaded – as if someone had weaseled her way into her mind, pried apart the steel that kept her sanctuary locked and secure.

Of all things, she barely managed to make out one phrase.

"But he's your… soulmate, right?"

Kara suddenly snapped her head up, making Winn jump at the precision. "He is _not_ my soulmate." And as if to prove it, she stuffed her fist as deeply as she could into the convenient pocket sewn into her skirt. "And that is the _end_ of this conversation."

The other two people in the room looked at each other, but she hardly cared. Seeing him in her people's pod was like a spit in the face; the longer she stayed, the angrier she felt. "Do whatever you want, for all I care. Take him back to the place you found him, or better yet, toss him in the ocean."

" _Kara-_ "

"-Keep the pod?-"

"No need," Kara called as she swivelled on her heel. "I have my own."

 **…**

Kara could hear her footsteps before she knocked. She didn't need x-ray vision to identify who those low-heeled combat boots belonged to, but for security's sake, a quick check proved that it was indeed her sister behind the door.

"Let's talk."

"Don't want to," she called from her spot on the couch.

The door fiddled and then opened anyways; Kara blew a long sigh before raising her glass of club soda back up to her lips. She didn't lower her cup until her sister had stepped over the doorframe, flung her coat on the table, closed the door behind her, and meticulously picked her way to the couch before sitting down beside her. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," Alex said firmly. Kara sighed and lowered her half-drained glass in submission. "You know that your reaction was extreme."

"I know," Kara conceded, and she took the liberty to stretch the silence by placing her glass onto the ottoman. She then flopped back onto the couch, allowing herself a few moments to truly get snuggled into the swath of cushions. Elbow propped on the back rest, her unmarked hand played with her hair as she struggled to find the words. "I know, but I don't take it back." Alex gave her _that_ look, the ' _you're usually the more rational sister'_ eyes, which would normally send a trill of guilt down Kara's spine. But this time, she just felt more defensive. "Alex, you don't understand."

"So explain," her sister invited with a gesture.

Kara sighed. Her mind flooded with words half-written, abstract ideas with barely a stray thread for her to pull on and to anchor them down. Where to start? How could she _explain_ something that was so ingrained in her? The three times she opened her mouth, she merely snapped it shut almost immediately after. All the while, Alex watched patiently, whatever program in the background lost to both of them as Kara finally sucked in a breath.

"It's… it's a huge part of Kryptonian culture. Daxam had marks too, but who knows if they even cared about them." Kara reached for the pillow behind her, squeezing it between her arms. "But to us, it meant a lot."

She paused, trying to gather her thoughts, to try to put words to the overwhelming emotion – mainly a mixture of disgust and loathing. She recalled privately mourning her hope of having any loving relationship, like the one between her birth father and mother, where their matching marks would pulse lightly in each other's presence. "It-It's just expected that you marry your soulmate." She set the pillow aside before she somehow managed to pop it, instead meeting her sister's chocolate gaze with her own. "It's called that for a reason."

Alex nodded along, a small frown creasing her forehead. "There aren't any recorded cases of it being otherwise?"

"Well, it's still a relationship. Things happen." Kara picked at her nails instead. "But I'm part of the House of El. We're traditionalists. We've always been that way." With a heavy sigh, she dropped her hands weightily into her lap. "I thought I had to hide my mark forever."

Her sister truly _did_ frown, now. "I'm sure they would've let you choose."

Kara sighed; she knew this was hopeless. "You don't understand, Alex, it's not _like_ Earth. And I'm sorry, but it's not something that's easy to understand unless you're from Krypton and grew up in the culture. Even Kal-el never knew, and it didn't matter to him. I didn't _think_ it would matter to me, not anymore." She pushed her palms into her knees, trying to quell the bitterness and bile that had surfaced anyways. "You don't know what it's like, with that mark on your hand, waiting and waiting to see when it'd react, start changing, can't wait to meet your soulmate, your fated match, imagining what you'd say when you met them, what expression to wear, your clothes… and the longer I waited, the more anxious I got."

The hollow feeling Kara felt when she'd returned from that trip, when she was left with absolutely no desire to fantasize about the thought of when, where, _how_ she'd meet her soulmate, was coming back tenfold. She remembered how betrayed she felt, how _scared_ she was, how she was suddenly thankful about the Mark taboo and that she hadn't had to explain her lack of reaction to anyone unless she wanted to.

"But it's more than that," she said bitterly. "Soulmate… so we must be a match. And Alex," she met her sister's wide-eyed stare, her tight-pressed lips at her anecdote. "I hate that. I _hate_ being associated with those… those fratboys."

"Is that why you never told me?" Alex asked quietly.

Kara merely dug her palms deeper in response. Alex _hmmed_ at that, though it wasn't enough. Kara drew a slow breath. "Everything about Daxam I told you is true. They just… party. No work ethic, they sleep around, and I _hate_ them. And it got me thinking… what does it say about me? What will _others_ think about me?"

"Kara," Alex said sternly, "when have you _cared_ about what anyone has thought of you?"

The words settled deep within her, stirring insecurities Kara had thought she had long since quashed. It had taken her so long to truly settle into _Kara Danvers_ , had spent too much time looking around her and hoping they saw her as a human, and not as an alien species. It had taken her so long to shed that, to grow comfortable with who she was and her new heritage, as well as to come to terms with her old one – including everything the mark represented.

She shifted in the couch, its quiet creak of protest lost to her ears. "I wasn't always like that. It was always _there_ , as I grew, even when I landed on Earth. And it's not about what people thought about me, why I chose to wear a glove; it's about what _I_ thought of it." She turned to her sister. "I was _ashamed_."

And there she went again, palming her knees with increasing ferocity, not that she really registered her own fidgets. "It was so _ingrained_ in me: the shame that I felt, the disgust at the idea, and the resentment that I couldn't just fit in, and when I got here, I thought I could grow past it." A small, bitter chuckle escaped her, one that bridged closer towards a gasp of breath. "It took a long time, and I thought I had been able to talk myself out of it. Thirteen years on Earth and I _became_ someone – but now I see him, and this _mark_ , and I realize -" her words derailed for a moment. Kara paused, giving herself a second to readjust her glasses, though really – she couldn't feel anything. "- I realize that I never did – get past it, I mean."

Alex suddenly reached towards her; Kara stiffened, before realizing her sister was brushing away the moisture that had gathered by her eyes. Furiously, she rubbed away at her cheeks. She didn't know where the tears came from, but the lump in her throat had softened, and, of all things, a deadly calm washed over her bones.

Alex sat back to her spot in the couch, crossing her arms over her torso. "I guess I won't understand what that must feel like, Kara," she admitted. "But it got me thinking, what if it doesn't say anything about you, and more about your soulmate instead? "

The words hung in the air, a suggestion that Kara had no response to, and so it lingered, like a heavy blanket waiting to envelop them both once it fell.

Alex spoke first. "Look, J'onn made the call to keep him, to try to revive him. If you want to swing by, he's not going anywhere." Her tone grew gentle, the same soothing quality Kara remembered when her sister used to reassure her that no one knew of her true identity, that the people staring weren't because they knew she was Kryptonian. "And honestly, I think you should go. Soulmate or not, but also because you two _are_. It might mean closure."

Kara only nodded, hypersensitive to every twitch, every stretch, and every muscle that worked in tandem to lower her head and raise it again. A brief smile spread across her sister's lips, before she reached over and grabbed the blanket that Kara kept under her coffee table for these emergencies. As Kara drew the red material over her lap, Alex slapped her hand down onto the remote that had been tossed aside since its owner first flicked on the TV. "Now, Rom-Com or Sci-Fi?"

 **...**

Kara didn't know why her feet had taken her here.

But here she was, at the med bay, staring at the man who likely would have been the bane of her existence. Her mark didn't help either, the uncomfortable pinpricks of needles pressing into the back of her hand as if it were one of those impossible notifications that wouldn't disappear no matter how fiercely one swiped it away. She wanted nothing more than to shake him awake, to demand questions and to know why he was in _her_ people's pod, why he arrived on Earth like she did 13 years previously, and whether he came here to personally torment her.

Instead, the doors hissed open behind her; Kara jumped as Winn rounded the corner, eyebrow raised. "You scared me," Kara said in defence.

"Uh huh," Winn said slowly, in surprising likeness to Cat's skepticism. "Here's where I remind you you're the one with the super hearing."

Kara's only rebuttal was to jut her chin out as menacingly as she could to him.

To Winn's credit, he took it in stride and instead produced the data pad he had deactivated by his side. "So, vitals look good, if we compare them to yours. It was also just as hard to work on him as it is to work on you, with your shared skin durability and fast regeneration. No ID, unfortunately."

Kara dropped her gaze back to the Daxamite on the table. She remembered not knowing which Daxamite it was that was her soulmate, but not caring, either; the only thing she knew was that it _was_ a Daxamite, and it was the very disgust which came with the revelation that she had clung onto all these years later. Kara merely shrugged. "I don't know him."

Winn narrowed his eyes. "Yeah, I was hoping you could help me in that department. How is it that you don't know?"

Kara shrugged again. "It was a long time ago, Winn, and honestly, I had no intention of getting to know him, far less his identity and who he was when we visited Daxam that day."

"Right," Winn said, and thankfully, he dropped the subject. "We also noticed that his hand doesn't have the mark."

"Knowing Daxamites," Kara deadpanned, "it's probably on his left butt cheek."

Winn made a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a gasp, though his choked _"Kara!"_ didn't elicit a similar response from her. "I've seen you bitter, but not this bitter."

Kara shrugged. "I can be petty when I want to be." She stared at his face again, the way his features were smoothed over, as if he were asleep and completely unaware of anything that was happening around him. Truthfully, it only caused irritation to spark down her spine. Maybe part of her would've listened to reason, that he hadn't done anything to cause such a reaction from her. But then another part was louder, warning her that if she gave him that chance, he may tear her world apart, destroy every part of her identity that she had so desperately clung onto. That he will rip her asunder and leave her there, stripped naked and void of every piece of herself, and there she'd remain, lost and breathless.

And she _hated_ that.

It took her a while to notice that Winn had followed her gaze. "Why is he in a Kryptonian pod, if he's from Daxam?"

The very thought had caused discomfort to pool in Kara's core; she took a step back and shook her head. "I intend to find that out when he wakes up," she muttered.

Winn only made a noncommittal noise. "Well, that won't be long—"

And before Winn had a chance to get another word in, a loud shuddering gasp came from the table. Kara barely looked down before _something_ had taken a hold of her throat, the grip tight enough that she actually felt air leave her windpipe. And then she was flung backwards with surprising strength, pain blossoming from her side as she smashed into the iron casing of the med bay. A breath wheezed reflexively into her as she struggled to get up. A quick sweep of the room told her that the wall behind her sported a Kara-sized dent, and the Daxamite stranger had sprung to his feet, already having yanked the heart monitors from his chest. He took a step towards her, and though her brain screamed to respond, to her horror, she found herself actually _winded._

Struggling to regain composure, Kara tried to form words, anything to stop his approach. Yet he loomed ever closer, steel eyes wide and confused, and he opened his mouth -

\- before he turned rigid, something vaguely sounding like an expletive rolling off his tongue, and then his legs gave out.

Behind him stood Winn, holding an empty syringe in his left hand, an entirely humourless half-giggle erupting from his lips. "That worked."

With the threat neutralized, her back dull with pain, and her Mark _still_ aching now that its other half was collapsed by her feet, Kara took another heaving breath in. "Th-that actually _hurt,"_ she managed, voicing the only thought that rang loudly in her head. Arching her head back, she allowed herself to rest against the dented metal, the cold steel soothing her tense muscles. "How did you…?"

"Tranquilizer, lead tip," Winn said, waving his weapon of choice a _little_ too carelessly, and yet Kara found no energy within herself to tell him otherwise. "I told you I do my research."

Kara shifted her gaze from her best friend, still goading, and back to the heap that was the Daxamite on the floor, who somehow managed to get knocked out and land face up. Her throat still felt sore from his grip, and she swore she could still feel the lingering phantom presence of sturdy fingers that had managed to actually _choke_ her.

Kara crinkled her nose. _Great._

 ** _..._**

When he woke up, it was with the same shuddering breath that Kara remembered. He bolted upright, fingers scrabbling helplessly against the bench, before he found purchase, lurching himself to a stop. Slowly, he dragged his gaze upwards, from the floor, to the glass between them, and finally, her own eyes.

"Are you going to try to attack me again?" Kara asked testily. "What are you doing on Earth?"

"Is that where I am?" the Daxamite responded. Something about his very _voice_ pissed her off: it had an odd note of suave-ness that she was certain may have done a number to others of his kind, and it only riled her further. "I could've sworn I was on Krypton."

Anger curled her hands into fists – she should've expected such, such blatant _ignorance_ from a Daxamite. "You are most definitely _not_ on Krypton, Daxamite. Also, how _dare_ you – even a Daxamite would know that Krypton's gone—"

"—Wait," he interrupted, his dark brown eyebrows knitting together. "Krypton's gone?"

Kara laughed humourlessly, crossing her arms across her chest. "For the last thirteen Earth years." The Daxamite said nothing, only dropping his gaze into his upturned hands. Kara was having none of it. "So how exactly did you get your hands on a Kryptonian pod?"

The Daxamite narrowed his eyes, settling back into the bench he sat on. "From the House of El."

" _Liar_ ," she hissed. Indignation spiked and Kara barely could contain her voice. "The House of El would have never would have gifted that away."

"Oh really?" The Daxamite spat back, the venom visceral in his every syllable he uttered. "I very much recall that there were several instances where the House of El made diplomatic visits to Daxam."

"I'm aware," Kara seethed. "But any gifts my family made would have been to the palace."

"I'm aware," the Daxamite returned, equal in vitriol, "But I'm part of – wait." And before Kara knew what he was doing, he ripped off his shirt, and before she had a chance to protest, he twisted his head over his shoulder and to an awkward bend. "I thought – it was a lead burn – _Al-F'oh-Nas_ ," he swore, and Kara didn't need to be fluent in his language to know the intent behind the Daxam phrase.

And as he swung around – Kara understood. There it was, the missing Mark, on the right side of his lower back, bright red and burning. The exact same one that was emblazoned on her own hand, it in itself seeming to have perked up upon her _finally,_ unerringly,identifying her soulmate.

" _You._ " Her attention snapped back to him, and she finally noticed his steely eyes glaring at her, cold and calculating.

Kara met his gaze as square as she could, unflinching in the face of his sheer ferocity.

" _Me._ "


	3. Chapter 3

_Her grip tightened as they made their way up the stairs to the palace. Kara Zor El didn't understand the need for stairs, but without their ability to fly, she found herself worn out quickly. Her mother never faltered, though, and to keep pace, Kara pushed herself harder, to take each step with pride until they made it to the top._

 _Her father was already there, speaking in a low voice to a man with a mop of brown hair before him._

" _Kara," her mother beckoned, and she ripped her gaze away from the two conversing leaders. "I need you to stay out of trouble. Can you do that for me?"_

" _Yes, mother," she responded, and with a gentle squeeze, her mother left her side._

 _Once they were both sufficiently away, Kara withdrew her pocketed hand. To her mortification, it was definitely active; all her life, she'd stared at that intricate weaving of black, dreaming for the day for it to change._

 _Now, it was a deep maroon red – so they were close, Kara realized, but not here._

 _Two impulses fought to take control: did she allow her curiosity to take over, and look for whom the Mark pulsed for? Or did she not bother, because it wasn't as if anything would come of it, and even if she did find them, would she be disgusted?_

 _Instead, the emotion she couldn't quite place threatened to well over again. She sat down against a column, staring at her hand, watching the Mark pulsate like a heartbeat. She'd never heard of this before – that a Kryptonian's Mark would align with another species. She didn't think any of the Marks, and any race that had them, would result in a partner who wasn't one of their own. Yet again, that bundle of emotion washed ever closer to her feet, a combination of guilt, disgust, anxiety, and crushing disappointment._

 _She didn't even notice her hand had ceased pulsating, and instead settled at to a steadily brightening red._

 _And then it was like a jolt; Kara jumped as the pin pricking began. She threw her gaze up, watching as three boys roughly a few years older than her walk by, talking in low excited voices, one nudging the other as he gasped and stumbled forward, evidently weaker than the others._

 _The one who nudged the other laughed as he reached forwards to steady him, and the sound made her hand boil. She was sure not to flinch, though, and she sunk further back into the pole, hoping it would swallow her whole. The same boy leaned in, scratching his back, and continued talking to his companions in a bright, animated tone._

 _And when the other two weren't paying attention, his steel-grey eyes locked onto hers._

 ** _..._**

"The Kryptonian Blondie – so you're from the House of El too, aren't you."

"I already confirmed that," Kara said, glaring at him from the other side of the glass window. Pieces of her memory were coming back, placing his eyes, his face, in the gaps that had splintered away from what she could barely remember as a child. Several questions came as the picture assembled itself in her mind; what had he been doing, what happened, how could he _not know_?

The Daxamite cleared his throat. He had put his forearms above him flush against the barrier between them, leaning in close enough for her to see his breath fog the glass. "Let me out," he said, before his eyebrow quirked. "If this mark means _anything_ , you would. "

Defensiveness flooded her system as Kara took a step back and raised her tone several notches louder. "Oh no, you do _not_ get to use that on me. Not one-"

"What's going on here?"

Kara swallowed the words that had nearly spilled unbidden from her throat. The Daxamite's head snapped up, steel eyes ripped from hers and to J'onn who had approached from behind them. "And who are you?"

Kara didn't have to turn to acknowledge her supervisor as he took the position beside her. "J'onn," she began, "this is –"

His eyes narrowed. "I know who you are."

The Daxamite caught his eye, his expression shifting. Kara barely had a moment to register her own confusion, before J'onn hit the release button with his elbow. "What-" Kara began before the hissing of glass drowned out her voice, and she watched with mortification as the only method of confinement against the Daxamite slid up and out of sight. "J'onn, he attacked me!"

"He was panicking, Kara. Not trying to kill you. And also, there's a bit of truth to his words." Kara made an attempt to protest, but J'onn shook his head. "Psychic, remember? Look, I know you're upset by all this, but you have to calm down. He's not a bad person -"

"See?"

" - Inherently," J'onn finished, and Kara resisted the urge to stick out her tongue back at the Daxamite. "Not until proven guilty, anyways." The Daxamite let out a small ' _hah'_ , jutting his chin out in a ' _I told you so'_ way. Kara merely rolled her eyes. "This is –"

"- Mon-El," the Daxamite piped up.

"Mon-El," Kara repeated incredulously.

"You think there's only one House of El in the whole galaxy?" he challenged. He took a daring step forward; Kara merely watched as he lifted a foot over the threshold, before planting it down with calculated deliberateness. "You'd think you know your own history, how the Kryptonians were the first ones to settle onto Daxam, and I suppose your ancestors did too-"

"Kara," she interrupted, before adding as an afterthought, "-Zor-El. And it's not the El surname that surprised me; I was under the impression that Daxam royalty were all Gands."

"You'd be correct. I, however, am but a palace guard." _Huh._ Kara took a step back as he took one forward, though she knew nothing in his stance screamed intimidating. If anything, the insistent prickling of her Mark told her otherwise. His eyes flicked down to her hand, and as an afterthought, he shook out the shirt he had kept balled in one fist and threw it back over his head. "You never told me there were Martians on Earth," he said, almost conversationally, as he wrestled the clothing back over his body. Though his casual tone was convincing, there was a thin veil of accusation that didn't sneak past her trained ears.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kara shot, but the Daxamite only picked his way past her. And though he never touched her, she could practically _feel_ his shoulder brushing past hers – she blamed it on the Mark, on her senses being kicked into overdrive because of _some_ primal Kryptonian reaction she had never been privy to. What she made of that, she didn't know; the only thing she can truly process was how he continued walking, with absolutely no regard to her. "And where are you _going_?"

"Away. From you," was that same, nonchalant tone. "I don't know about you, but I don't enjoyconfinement."

Thoughts and words half-formed flickered through her mind, and the more it bugged her, the more she was aware of the _damn_ prickling in her hand. But before she could decide on how to react, J'onn was already by the Daxamite's side, grabbing a wrist and holding him there. "Unfortunately, Daxamite, we still have to run some tests on you. You just woke up and we don't know what extent this yellow sun would affect you if you have similar physiologies as Kryptonians."

There was something else in his voice that Kara couldn't quite place, but there was also an emotion in Mon-El's expression that had her even more frustrated. She crossed her arms. Kara would've been more than fine if he picked his way off Earth and made his way back to Daxam - far, far away from her and her life.

She still hated how her hand throbbed in protest.

J'onn shook his head, snapping Kara out of her wishful thinking. "It's procedure. I'll send an agent to escort you back to the med-bay."

"That's fine," Mon El said evenly. His eyes suddenly snapped back to her; Kara swallowed and straightened. His lips twitched before he whirled back around, falling in step with a DEO agent Kara was unfamiliar with. She lowered her gaze, the sound of his footsteps fading, even with her super hearing.

"He is _infuriating._ "

"He can probably still hear you," J'onn responded evenly.

"Good," Kara huffed, but she was already feeling less tense. Though her Mark was certainly still active, it was no longer incessant, pinging with relentless need to do something as irrational as actually make _contact_ with him.

J'onn turned to her, eyebrow raised. "You know, he's really not a bad person."

"I know, and I trust you on that judgement," Kara conceded truthfully. But it didn't mean she had to _like_ it.

J'onn sighed, and she was more than aware that he had picked up on that thought too. He clasped a hand on her shoulder. "I think I understand how deeply rooted this is for you. I've told my people to give him a chance; all I ask is that you do too."

Kara sighed. So many parts of her wanted to, told her that it was the reasonable thing to ask and she was _not_ this person. But then so many others screamed out, reminded her of the fear and the anxiety and the disappointment, and Kara could only meet J'onn's warm brown gaze squarely. "I'll try," she murmured, and it was more for herself than for him.

He gave a brisk nod regardless, and he left her alone and to her own thoughts.

 **…**

Since then, it had been a few days of peace. No alerts, no crises; just Kara Danvers at Catco, still bringing the signature lattes and bagels into Cat's office and helping out where she could. Her Mark too had been silent, and it was easy to pretend all of this hadn't happened. That the last 13 years weren't suddenly over, that she wasn't entrapped without warning into this confusing mess of obligation and shame and disgust.

No, she was Kara Danvers again – plain Kara who was a part of the corporate system, and it was comforting to return to that façade, despite how she spent her nights contemplating that black intricate webbing on the back of her hand.

But she finally got the alert she hadn't quite realized she was dreading, and when her phone flashed she made the hasty excuse that her lactose intolerance had flared once again ("should _not_ have had that coffee," she had laughed nervously, before clearing her throat, ducking her head, and speed walking as fast as what was humanly appropriate in heels). Once she was a safe distance away, she undressed and threw her garments in her locker, gathering her strength in her heels and bounding off into the sky, all done in mere moments and much faster than any untrained eye could see.

The briefing took mere moments and it was nothing more than a trivial robbery in the south end of National City; Kara nodded along as they prattled along the few trivialities, her hand warm to the point it was vaguely uncomfortable, the sound of _something_ catching her ears. She glanced up, realizing that loud echoing had come from a training room. Similar glass partisans separated the gym-like chamber from the rest of the operations. She identified the source of the vague pummeling: a poor column of metal had several dents in it, and her eyes trailed from the culprit of a fist to whom it belonged to.

Mon El wiped the sweat from his brow before shaking out his fists, and, with a jolt of electricity, his eyes suddenly, unerringly, met hers.

His expression had begun to twist before he perked up, and Kara too could make out another male, unidentifiable voice calling for his attention. Tension she didn't realize he was holding released as his fists uncurled, a muffled _'yep'_ barely audible where she stood, and his gaze fell on the datapad a DEO agent held out to him.

"Supergirl?"

"Huh?" And Kara, too, forced herself to relax – she hadn't realized when she had tensed her shoulders, her own neck gripped tight.

The agent followed her gaze. "They're running tests."

"Still?" Kara said incredulously. "It's been a few days."

"We're testing to see what the extents of his powers may lay," her briefer explained. "I'm sure we'll have conclusive results soon."

Kara only nodded along, before she ripped her gaze away from that training room and back to the task at hand, pushing the thought of him – and the dull whine in her hand – as far back from her thoughts as she could.

 **…**

There was something cathartic in being _Supergirl_ too, she mused, as the bullets ricocheted off her chest and clattered noisily onto cement. Guns clicked redundantly to the avail of empty cartridges, loud swears even without her superhearing vibrant in the air.

"I don't know why you keep trying," she taunted as she approached. "This hasn't worked and it is never going to work." And as she got close enough to press her gloved palm directly into the barrel of whatever pistol pointed at her, she closed her fist and wrenched up, the groaning of worn metal a confirmation to her ears.

And making sure she held back just _enough_ restraint, she sank her right fist into the perpetrator's cheek.

He crumpled almost instantaneously, a pathetic heap on the ground by her feet. His partner's gaze flicked up and down, eyes wide. Kara rolled her shoulder back and stared them down. They instantly lifted their hands, firearm falling uselessly onto the ground. "Good choice," Kara muttered, and it didn't take her long to bind their hands together as securely as she could, before the wailing of sirens had her straightening.

She waited until the authorities stepped out of their vehicles before she gave a swift nod, gathering strength back into her heels, and taking off into the sunset.

And as she jetted across the skyline of National City, Kara still felt like part of her was unfulfilled. They were humans, and she would normally stray from _seriously_ hurting anyone, but it wasn't enough. The frustration lingered even as she zipped into her apartment, her disappointingly void apartment with nothing more a handful of books, several films on Blu-Ray, and Netflix shows that she'd either seen already or were simply too slow for her to bother investing time in as a means of distraction.

Kara chewed on her lip, before she sighed and gave into her first instinct. Tossing another rueful stare at her apartment, Kara whisked around and locked the door behind her.

 **…**

The first one felt good, but the second was even better. With every unbridled punch she threw into the bag, the more Kara actually felt her tension release. Though she blasted music over the speaker system, each blow still rang clear. Besides, it was immensely satisfying to hear the leather-like material squeak as the stuffing dampened the impact, groaning as fist-like dents appeared and disappeared into the dual-chromed red that was the exterior of her own punching bag.

She threw a few more punches before she dropped her glowing fist and twisted, using her momentum to sink her heel deep into the bag's side. Another groan of leathery hide ripped around her music, and Kara withdrew her leg, the rawness of her foot almost as pleasurable as the visual evidence of her kick.

Kara knew he was there even before his hands came together in a slow, sarcastic clap. She didn't need the searing confirmation of her Mark to alert her of his presence. "Impressive," Mon El offered, and though she could still detect a careful impassiveness to his voice, there was a sly hint of sincerity that coloured his tone.

Kara shook her head. "You should see me when I'm angry."

He laughed, a throaty kind of sound that was deep and chesty. "Wouldn't imagine what that looked like."

Kara sighed and pivoted, facing the Daxamite who leaned lackadaisically against the wall. "I could always practice on you."

His steel eyes shifted; he didn't bother hiding his own very-apparent reading of her. "Maybe another time," he finally said, and Kara knew the upturn of his lips had no warm or friendly intent behind them. She felt herself rising to the challenge, instinctively puffing her chest out and leaning towards him. And then he threw his hands up in defeat. "I just heard the punching and I was curious. Should've figured the only one who could cause that much noise in the gym was a Kryptonian."

Red hot anger coiled in Kara's stomach at his snide words; her lips curled and her hands fisted her gym pants, clenching so hard the Mark almost _seethed_ in pain. "Exactly _what_ are you implicating?"

The Daxamite's eyebrow rose. "That only you would be able to throw punches so hard that you can hear it over _Disclosure_?"

 _Oh._

Yet the anger didn't recede, and something in his expression irked her further, like he wouldn't take it back, that he was fully aware of the double entendre that he had spoken. Kara didn't bother gracing him with a response. She merely turned and reassumed her stance, lifting her one glowing fist and her other, non-glowing one. "Just go home."

She could practically _feel_ his shrug. "Already am."

"Then go back to your room."

He made a noise that was halfway between offended and surprised, before his same, irritatingly calm voice followed. "Okay…. _Mom._ "

A million comebacks could've spilled from her mouth, but Kara barely kept them at bay by chewing on her lower lip. She remained motionless as he wrenched open the door, his footsteps fading before it swung shut behind her. And then, with all the pent up anger and ferocity she could muster, Kara hurled a punch into the bag, the scream of crunching leather once again drowning out the bass of whatever dance song had come on next. As she pulled back, she could see where the leather cracked, revealing a shade of eerie white beneath the red dye of the punching bag's exterior.

Kara shook out her fist as she caught her breath, only idly noticing the Mark continue to fad from indignant red back to a low, pulsing orange.

 _Well,_ she thought, _he_ definitely _does not want to see me angry._


	4. Chapter 4

When Kara woke up the next morning, she could only remember three things: one, the ungodly hour when she returned home, deliciously worn after venting her frustrations out at the DEO's gym. Two, the fact she went to sleep with her hair wet, for her blonde were entrapped in an odd halo around her face not unlike a bird's nest when she awoke. Three, the only lingering image from her dream - which was admittedly foggy in its entirety, except for those soul-piercing grey eyes.

Kara sighed and flung the sheets off her body. Her mind reeled as she speed-dressed and dragged a comb through the mess that was her hair, one of the few things that her Kryptonian heritage did not give her an inherent advantage over humans. Sticking a bobbypin between her lips, Kara finally gave in and pinned her hair back, checking once more that her skirt was straight and her blouse of choice was properly pressed.

A mad dash, a latte order, and a grabbing of crinkly brown takeout bags later, Kara nearly stumbled out of the elevator, just barely avoiding lopping coffee down her front. She gave as much of a smile as she could to her coworkers around her, before she tugged on the hem of her skirt and readjusted her glasses onto the bridge of her nose. With a brusque nod, she lowered her head and headed straight for her desk.

Kara could hear the rush of wind as Cat's elevator ascended, yet she whipped her head around anyways with practiced and the perfect amount of surprise when the doors dinged. Kara quickly offered the usual fixings to her boss, but the woman merely paused. The first reaction, she predicted: Cat merely scoffed. ("Your _hair,_ " her boss droned, "please don't tell me you just stuck pins in it and thought it was okay.") The second, though, was much less predictable. Of all things, Cat seemed to soften, before she gave what was a fleeting, yet somehow melancholy, smile.

"Kara," said the woman, and the Kryptonian knew whatever it was, it was serious.

"I'd like to speak privately to you."

 **…**

"Kara?"

She snapped her head up, locking herself into her sister's brown gaze. "You okay? You seem out of it," Alex continued.

Kara blinked. "Um," she shook her head, "yeah - I'm fine – yeah. Miss Grant is going back to Metropolis," she added as she fiddled with her hands.

"Oh," Alex said quietly. "So you have a new boss?"

Kara merely nodded, before shaking the distractions clear from her mind. "So, what's the emergency? A car crash, a lost kitten, oh _please_ don't tell me it's another armed robbery. Those _have_ to stop happening as often as they do."

Alex chuckled. "No, no – nothing like that today, actually. We were, ah," and it wasn't often that Kara saw Alex hesitate, not until her sister swallowed and continued. "Hope you could do us a favour."

"Anything!" Kara responded immediately, though part of her wondered what would warrant the trepidation.

"We want you to help with Mon El's testing."

Kara grimaced. Her hand hadn't ceased its vague prickling since she had arrived, and now it just seemed like it was going out of its way to spite her.

Alex's expression shifted in what must've been accordance to hers. She leaned in, her auburn hair brushing against her shoulder. "Well, we need to properly gauge his strength, and knowing _both_ of you, well - if you're lucky, you might get a chance to hit him too."

Kara sighed, keeping her chin steady as she stared straight ahead. "As much as I think he deserves it, I shouldn't be punching an innocent."

"But you want to."

"I _really_ want to," Kara echoed longingly. "And it's for science?"

"For science."

"Well," Kara said, her fist clenching then unclenching. The responding burn of her Mark as she stretched the skin it was emblazoned upon somewhat satisfying, knowing that her knuckles were next. "It would be rude of me to refuse."

 **…**

"Why is _she_ here?"

His voice bounced off the reinforced walls of the DEO gym, ringing loudly in Kara's ears as she tossed her hair back and placed her hands on her hips. Winn only shot her a half-apologetic glance. "She's here to help."

"Yeah," Kara said, "I'm the only one you won't snap in half." Mon El only shot her a disdainful glare, his steel-grey eyes hard and cool. For once, he said nothing; he merely curled his arms and shoulders back, the sound of cracking muscles vibrant in the air. Kara ignored him and stepped around the Daxamite, instead shooting a glance at Winn's datapad. "So, powers?"

"Right," Winn muttered, one finger flicking through files as he pulled them up. "We ran a bunch of tests, and we found that he _really_ doesn't have the same powers as you. No cold breath, x ray vision, heat vision…" He scrolled faster through whatever list he had conjured up, with only one thing in common: a red x crossed through the box beside each possibility. "As you can see," Winn continued, pulling Kara from the trance, "no powers. Basically, he can just punch hard."

" _Really_ hard," Mon El supplied from the side.

"And that's where you come in, to confirm," Winn finished, lowering the pad before wiggling his eyebrows. Kara sighed, eyeing the Daxamite from her spot across the room.

"Okay," she gave in. With a satisfying few snaps, Kara stretched her fingers out. She took a couple steps forward before sinking into a fighting stance, watching as the Daxamite mirrored her. "You might want to stand back," she added as an afterthought behind her. Three shuffles later telling her that Winn had done exactly that, Kara breathed in and out, and then launched forward.

Her first swing he dodged, in an odd, dream-like quality that she could only describe as being similar to her own super speed. He lunged at her, hand outstretched, but Kara caught it in her right hand – and it _burned_ at the contact, Mark bright red and hot and sizzling – before she clamped her fingers down, wrenching his arm away, body in tow.

Mon El took a couple stumbling steps before straightening, stretching his neck, eyes raking over her form. Kara didn't allow him much longer, as she hurtled to him again, this time swinging at the last second with her left fist. She felt satisfying resistance as her blow sank into his shoulder. His entire limb jerked back in what could've been slow motion, before he was suddenly close to her again, his own fist connecting into her gut. The wind knocked from her windpipe as Kara gasped, winded – but she wasn't going to be caught off guard like last time. Swallowing down another breath, she whirled around before Mon El had a chance to continue his attack, her hand clamping down on his wrist. Then, she readjusted her grip before she _heaved_ , and once again a wave of satisfaction washed over her as she flipped the Daxamite over her and onto the floor, a groan hissing from his lips as he hit the floor with deafening impact.

"Woah," Winn's voice rang out from the corner. Kara forced her concentration to return, though her shoulders heaved and the slightest of pants did work its way from her body. She straightened, eyeing her best friend-turned- DEO agent where he was standing, waving his data pad. "I said to gauge his strength, not smash him to the ground."

"It's alright," Mon El said hoarsely. Kara couldn't help it; a small droplet of grudging admiration fell into the ocean of otherwise overwhelming disdain as the Daxamite pulled himself to his feet, clearly winded. "I can take her."

"Can you now?" Kara taunted as she raised her fists again. "Just try."

"Or," Winn interrupted, "-or you could assess how many punches he can throw and whether he can keep them consistent. Kara," his tone had shifted to almost pleading now. "Please."

He was _right_ there, shirt off balance and hair dishevelled. Her hand burned with her gaze, as if it craved another taste of him, to just make skin-to-skin contact once more, so that it could finally hum to life. But if there was one thing she could do, it was denying the very Mark the ability to do so. "Fine," Kara bit, before she sunk into her battle stance again, raising her two fists to hover away from her head at the ready.

Mon El, too, sank into a battle stance, before he too lunged forward.

 **…**

Kara ignored the footsteps, the click of the locker beside her, the rattling sound of contents being emptied into said locker, and the inevitable shutting and _click_ of the metal face. She had every intention of continuing the feigned ignorance even after he had cleared his throat, but by the third _hem hem_ Kara rolled her eyes and snapped her locker shut, turning to the offender. " _What_?"

"I wanted to ask you if you feel any better," Mon El said coolly. His grey gaze was almost predatory , to her at least; Kara found it near impossible to rip her gaze from his. "You know, after yesterday's display – that was _fancy_ by the way, which planet manufactured your punching bag? – and today, you know, after you flipped me onto the ground."

Kara pursed her lips. Ten different reactions flicked through her mind, each vying to be fully voiced and realized, and yet something else escaped her mouth instead. "Why are you bothering?" She asked, keeping her voice a careful, fabricated neutral.

If he had noticed, Mon El made no show of it. "I just want to get to know my soulmate. You know, that mark on your hand, on _my_ back… haven't you ever wondered?" His last words were oddly familiar, the tone that caressed each syllable not unlike the one she used to have inside her mind before she knew the truth. "So we can pretend to get along, for at least one conversation."

As much as she hated to admit it, he was right – there was no point in holding her current contempt, even though she'd never felt more justified in feeling it Kara bit her bottom lip before she exhaled noisily from her nose. "I do feel better," she conceded grudgingly.

"Well, I'm glad the pain I feel in my lower back was worth something," Mon El shot, his eyebrows lifting. He pushed himself from the lockers, finger tapping the metal surface in some oddly complex rhythm. And then he stopped, his hand hesitating. His hand clenched into a fist before unclenching. "I'll see you then, soulmate."

Kara said nothing, only watching him as he spun on his heel and stalked his way out of the locker room.

 **…**

Three more sparring sessions followed, each peppered with a healthy amount of taunting and insults. Some were petty, about appearance or hair, but there were a few that were rather xenophobic, and Winn would've gasped if he understood how deeply rooted some of the words exchanged were. And yet Kara didn't take them to heart; she knew fighting talk when she's been a part of it, and while it wasn't personal, her opinion of him certainly never shifted.

It quickly became apparent that he wasn't as strong as Kara in terms of raw power. As he threw punch after punch that she caught nestled in the expanse of her palm, he only growled in frustration and wrenched his fist away, only to swing around, leg outstretched. Even the kick was blocked and captured in Kara's gasp, though the force of the blow had her skidding to the side. Chest heaving, Kara caught his gaze – and it was fiery, smoldering, overwhelming in a way only his steely grey could be. Her hand throbbed at their connection, and once again she felt helpless to rip her eyes away, to do anything but stand paralyzed, until his leg twitched and she immediately dropped it.

Mon El didn't bother to drop by the lockers either, not since the first day. Truthfully, Kara was relieved. The first conversation was rife with tension, and to be frank she had no intention of reliving it. Instead, she slapped her used towel from her shoulder and into the blue metal confinement, snapping the locker shut behind her.

She took the steps back up in threes, requiring no further warm up as she leaned over the briefing table, discussing in low voices over another rogue alien sighting.

Kara felt a gaze burning into the back of her head, and if anything, the insistent burning in her palm only reconfirmed her suspicions.

Yet she made no effort to move, to acknowledge or meet that surely smoldering grey gaze.

And then the next morning, Alex clamped her grip down on Kara's wrist. Kara instantly observed that her sister's grip, though clearly strong by human standards, was easily breakable if she so much as tried. Maybe she had gotten used to sparring with Mon El, and she remembered just before it was too late that if she did shake her hand loose, it may not have translated to _shaking_ to her human sister, and Kara was suddenly internally cringing at the possibilities.

"Kara," Alex's voice cut through her thoughts. "Winn says he doesn't need you anymore. They've done sufficient strength testing."

"Oh," she responded with a shrug. No love lost, though part of her regretted that she wouldn't have an excuse to pummel the Daxamite anymore. Her hand pricked as if in response to her thoughts.

"Yeah," Alex continued. "They're in the final stages before I think they're gonna consider giving him clearance."

Kara nodded along, until the last word rang out. "Wait, _clearance?"_ she asked, alarmed. Alex merely nodded. Kara grimaced.

"It's the same process anyone would have to go through," Alex said evenly. "If he passes all his tests and the certifications, I don't see a reason to keep him at the DEO. And I'm sure J'onn feels the same way."

"Right," Kara said, and she glanced up to where she'd grown used to seeing the Daxamite, in the open-faced gym, already warming up for their spar. But he and Winn were absent from their usual spot, the gym oddly unoccupied for the first time. She raised an eyebrow and turned back to her sister. "Where are they?"

"Downstairs," Alex responded, shrugging. "I saw them in the test rooms."

"Okay," Kara responded before she squeezed her sister's hand. "I'll be back." And with a flourish of her cape, she whirled and strode to the descending staircase and into the test chambers.

She could already hear noise from one of the rooms, the sound of punches in succession before silence, then bounding footsteps, and a surprising _thump._ Kara followed the odd combination to a training room, before wrenching the door open.

Two heads whipped to hers at once, Winn almost immediately dropped what he was holding, the databoard clattering onto the floor. Mon El only paused – she noticed that his hands were drawn tight into fists, punching into –

" _Is that my punching bag?_ "

"Well, nothing else could stand up to Mon El's strength-"

"-Winn, that's made from Starkhaven, you could've at least asked me," Kara sighed, watching her friend hang his head in shame. "And what are you guys doing anyways?"

"Training," Mon El piped up.

"Woah," Winn cut in as Kara whipped her gaze to Mon El. "That was _not_ what our story was supposed to be."

But Kara had almost completely ignored Winn. _"Training?"_ she repeated incredulously.

"It was Winn's idea," Mon El added quickly, shooting a glance to him, who only balked.

"Not… that… either - Testing," Winn said, exasperated. "You were supposed to say testing."

"Winn –" Kara gestured the door, and he was more than happy to oblige. Once her friend had slid past the metal door, Kara shut it behind him before affixing her glare back onto the offending Daxamite. "Explain."

"Well," Mon El started, and the stupid entitlement that oozed from his voice only ticked Kara off further. "If I'm to survive on Earth, I wanted to train – to get stronger. Besides," he added. "If Martians live here, and _you_ live here, then I'm clearly not the strongest race. I want to be prepared."

Although deep down, Kara could admit she understood where he was coming from, it still didn't excuse the fact that he was _training._ She took a deep breath in. "When J'onn said you could stay this is _not_ what he meant," she said. "I don't need to be psychic to know that to be the truth."

The Daxamite's lips twitched as he crossed his arms defiantly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His voice was the still rattling cross between calm and arrogant. "Well, he hasn't stopped me sooo-"

"This is –" Kara inhaled, trying to find the right words. "Absolutely – nuts! This is _nuts_! Look, I know you're not home, and you're a guard. I can understand why you'd feel … well, weird, not being in an authority position, but that's not how it works here, Winn knows it, and J'onn knows it, too. You can't – you can't go out there—"

"Why, because I'm not you?"

The words hung in the air, before Kara shook her head. "Exactly because you're not me!"

"Because I'm a Daxamite?" He challenged further. Kara only blinked owlishly, before she suddenly found her voice again.

" _What_? No, it has nothing to do with that. I grew up here, but you don't know what it's like, how different it is on Daxam, _and_ on Krypton, compared to Earth! You can't just… be loosed onto the world!"

"I don't follow," Mon El said coolly.

Kara took a deep breath in. The act of trying to compartmentalize her thoughts was nearly impossible, though the challenge in his eyes only encouraged her further. "You're dangerous. _I'm_ dangerous. You should be trying to control, not _training._ "

"But training _is_ learning to control it."

Kara shook her head. "You only have super strength, and maybe super speed – and it's not like you're going out of your way to be a superhero. So _no_ , I don't think you need to be training."

"Well," he said, and he took an aggravating step forward and lifted his chin towards her. "We see differently. I think I need to train – to be able to defend myself, _and_ to be able to control it."

He was steadily approaching, and with every calculated step he took, Kara considered and reconsidered just punching him and getting it over with. It wasn't until he was close enough that she could see the brownish flecks in his grey irises, close enough that her hand almost felt like a _magnet_ to him, insisting over and over to just be able to _touch_ him. "So you're not going to stop?" Kara forced out.

He looked beyond her, lips curling down, before his gaze locked back to hers, eliciting sparks down her spine.

"Nope," he responded, popping the _p._ "Are you going to stop me?"

Kara thought about it, she _truly_ did, but as much as she may not like him, she also knew when she had overstepped her place. She met his gaze straight on. "Nope," she said, in almost perfect imitation to him.

"Good."

" _Great_."

"You can go now."

"I was leaving anyways."

"Get Winn back here."

"You can do that yourself."

"Fine."

" _Fine_."


	5. Chapter 5

"Right." _Crunch._ "Left." _Crunch._ "Behind you!" _BAM!_ "And left –" _Crash!_

"Awesome – that's really – wow, the only person to leave those sized dents is Kara –"

"—Kara?" Alex's expression twisted into a frown. "You're scrunching."

Kara jolted, her finger on autopilot. In the absence of her usual perched glasses, she scratched her nose instead. She met her sister's expectant gaze, and she swallowed. "Nothing," she tried, to Alex's unconvinced stare. Kara cleared her throat. "It's Winn. He's t-"

"-testing Mon El?"

"You too?" Kara questioned sourly.

Alex sighed. Kara didn't feel her sister's grip as Alex tightened it around her forearms in what was surely supposed to be a reassuring squeeze. Kara gave her sister a few seconds before she shrugged her off. "I don't like it Alex, I think that he shouldn't be testing – training - whatever – why can't he just _go_?"

Alex let her finish, her brown eyes filling with sympathy. Kara hadn't realized her own heightened emotionality, hadn't felt the lump swell in her throat. She took three gulping breaths. "I'm sorry, I'm not normally like this."

"You have nothing to apologize for," Alex said immediately. "I can't claim I know how this must feel for you, but I have to ask – is it because he's a Daxamite? Or because of the Mark?"

"I-" Kara paused, swallowing. The overwhelming disgust was all she knew, and parsing it was hard. Nevertheless, she closed her eyes and _tried_. "I don't know," she answered truthfully. "Both."

"And not because of _him_?"

Kara opened her eyes, letting the steadily-focusing image of her sister be what she focused on. "I guess."

Alex nodded briskly. "I get it Kara, or at least what I can – and what you feel is valid. But you have to give him – _Mon El_ – a chance. You never let being an alien define you."

The words made sense, and Kara knew it would take everything and more to unlearn what she had known. When she thought of him – the dark brown hair, the steel grey eyes, the hard lines of his jaw – there was some distinct trill she felt in the base of her stomach, a distinct call for all her senses to flare into overdrive.

"… don't see what's wrong in training. Or _testing_ ," her sister was saying. Kara chased away the still-churning image of him from her brain before her sister noticed. "I think it's a good idea, actually. If he has the same super strength as you, then I think the general public would prefer he could control it, before he could wreak havoc on National City."

"Fine," Kara breathed, "Fine, but Daxamites _do_ have a history of being impulsive –" Her sister gave her a half smile, one that she only knew too well and had coined as the ' _big sister is leaving now'_ grin. "—and being destructive. Frat boys of the universe!" she called as her sister waved, and the most Kara could do was cross her arms and huff in Alex's wake.

 **...**

Kara counted three more ear-splitting crunches, even without her super hearing, before she clenched down on the metal handles and threw the doors open.

They split against the concrete walls with a satisfying crack and both boys straightened immediately. Kara scanned the room; at least they had graduated from using her punching bag. Instead, broken slabs of concrete lay in various sized debris by their feet. To Winn's credit, this time he _didn't_ drop the data pad. Instead, his expression twisted into something similar to shame. The Daxamite, on the other hand, only narrowed his eyes, bottom lip curling.

"Oh don't let me interrupt," Kara said, leaning against the concrete. "I just wanted to watch, seeing as the ruckus you're making wasn't about to stop anyways."

Mon El shot Winn a glance, who only seemed to swallow tentatively before slowly and deliberately pivoting back to his subject. "Punch, again?" he nearly squeaked, his words coming out more as a question than a command.

The Daxamite obliged; his fists curled and his right hook shot outwards. Another earsplitting crack rang through the room as the concrete slab could've easily been Styrofoam. Chunks smattered onto the ground in a shower of violent and hardened rain, spraying up a dust storm before settling in a discoloured stain on the floor. Kara kept her hands tucked firmly under her armpits, though she didn't have to see it to know her mark was glowing in earnest.

She didn't realize Winn had cleared his throat. Kara caught his gaze, but before she opened her mouth, she could already read his intentions in his green eyes. "No," Kara shot pre-emptively.

" _Please_ Kara," Winn pleaded.

"I already helped you once. I'm not getting entangled in this again."

"But you're the _only_ one who can lay a hand on him. If we sort this out now, he'll be done. And he'll get clearance," Winn said hastily. He took three bounding steps towards him, shoving the data pad under his arm before clasping his hands together in a prayer. "Please," he said again, his voice dropping to just barely a whisper. "Just a _bit_ more and he'll be out of the DEO _and_ your hair."

"He's right, you know," Mon El called from behind him. Kara only shot him a glare in response, before shifting her gaze back to her best friend.

"Fine," she relented. "But I'm only doing this because you're my best friend. And because he'll be gone."

"And because you get to punch him again?"

Kara tossed her hair behind her shoulders and shot Winn a smile. "You're my best friend for a reason." She paused to tie her blonde hair into a ponytail behind her before rubbing her hands together. The Daxamite across from her also sank down, fists raised. Kara tried to ignore her hand, so _insistent_ for contact, now that it was so close. "So what are we testing for?"

"Stamina and endurance," Winn called, having moved a sufficient distance from the pair. "Nothing we really tried tired him out."

"Feels great, by the way," Mon El said; even the closeness of his voice and breath had already pressed tension into a tight coil in the bottom of her stomach. Her hand throbbing didn't help, either.

"We'll see about that," Kara muttered, and she lunged forward.

He reached up to brace himself from her grip; Kara clamped her hands onto his forearms, the momentum of her approach causing the two to skid back. Her right hand _seared_ at the contact, but she hardly had the time to focus on that. Instead, she aimed a well-placed kick with her left foot, sinking with a fair amount of resistance into his right thigh. Air expunged from his mouth at the contact, before Mon El wrenched his arms down, flinging her grip off him. Kara took a step back, meeting his steely gaze for a brief second before he lunged at her. She caught his fist in her hand, all her muscles screaming to dampen the blow. "Not again," Kara muttered, before she clamped her fingers down and swung another well aimed punch into the Daxamite's side. Mon El groaned before he wrenched his fist from her grasp, instead gripping the area she had targeted, breaths heaving.

"You're good," he managed in between gasps, and Kara only shot him a meaningless smile.

In what could have been three seconds or five minutes, Mon El straightened and leapt at her again, fists raised once more. Kara raised her hands, ready to catch yet another blow, before the wind knocked from her and she gasped – he had ducked, instead securing an iron grip around her torso. The momentum sent them crashing into the concrete, Kara sputtering as her back smashed against the wall. Pinned in place, she couldn't do much as the Daxamite stared at her – and his gaze just as piercing as the sudden pain that blossomed from her side, when Kara realized that he had sank a fist into her flesh. With a groan of effort, Kara heaved him off her. Instincts took over as she watched him stumble back a step, her lungs gathering breath –

Winn's voice cut through her adrenaline-addled mind. "Stamina, Kara, not pulverise—"

Kara blew out her breath, harmless and normal save the few lowered degrees of temperature. She spat the last bit of air from her, cracking her neck instead as she watched the Daxamite catch his balance with a vengeance. "That surprised me."

"Thanks," Mon El said, his tone entirely thankless. "I mean I _have_ been training." And then he was a blur, just capable of being followed thanks to her vision; Kara knew Winn had no chance of following what came next. His blow came close to her ear but she dodged, pivoting on her heel before grabbing his shoulder, wrenching his momentum back – he lurched as she aimed a kick, but he stepped just in time to steady himself – he threw another punch, but she caught that one too, absorbing the impact with gritted teeth –she threw another upper cut right into his gut. And he flew upward, smashing into the ceiling, another foreign swear slipping from his lips, before he was on the ground with a thunderous _crack_ , splayed on the floor in a heap.

Kara turned to Winn, whose eyes were merely wide at what had unfolded in front of him.

"That was – wow," he finally managed. Kara quirked an eyebrow, before the crumpled man on the floor twitched.

"More?" Kara asked incredulously, panning her gaze down to the defeated Daxamite before her. "Don't you know when to give up?"

"Mm," Mon El groaned, and though Kara had already upped her guard, the only moving he did was to sit up, legs splayed, on the floor. "I surrender. Wavin' the white flag. Surprised to hear that's kind of a universal thing, literally."

Kara rolled her eyes.

Instead, Winn came from behind her, settling by her side. "Well, judging by that fight, you seem to have a decent amount of stamina. But also, Supergirl can take you down if need be."

The grey-ness in his eyes seemed to dull at that statement. "Which means…?"

"Which means -" Winn said, his fingers tapping several sections of the datapad in a flurry that Kara could've attributed to super speed if she didn't know better, "—clearance. As soon as I clear that with Hank. Ironically."

Kara watched as Winn reached down. Mon El stared at the outstretched hand for a couple heartbeats, before he reached up and clasped it with his own. The first tug sent Winn lurching forward, but the second _did_ get the Daxamite to his feet. "Thanks Winn, really," Mon El said, broadly grasping Winn's shoulders with his two hands, either ignoring or not catching his obvious wince at the alien grip. "I'll see you in a bit." The Daxamite paused, his grey gaze raking over hers, but Kara only stared back, clenching her hand as it prickled with the intensity of his eyes. And then he was gone.

Winn turned to her then. " _Thank_ you, Kara. Really."

Kara blinked – she wasn't sure why she had spaced out, but she focused on the human who was patiently awaiting a response. "Oh, it was no problem – actually, kind of fun."

"You're telling me," Winn said. "That last bit was awesome. But your hand."

"What?" Kara said, distracted. "My hand's fine."

"No, not from punching, but – your, uh, _Mark._ " Kara released her right hand from its fist, lifting it instead. It was no longer its full-blown red, the core faintly glowing like a little heartbeat of its own. Winn followed her gaze, before he broke the tranquility of the moment by scratching the back of his head. "Whenever it made contact, it was almost blinding."

Kara blinked. "Really?"

Winn nodded briskly. "Did it hurt – did something feel abnormal – I've never seen that reaction before –"

"You haven't seen a reaction from it, _period._ " Kara shook her head. "And no, nothing abnormal, I don't think. Though it _did_ burn whenever I touched him; I guess it was doing that both literally and visually."

"Hm," Winn said thoughtfully, his gaze sliding unseeing beyond her. He cleared his throat. "Hey, if it does feel, I don't know, weird or awkward… you can always let me know. I'm here to help you through this, Kara."

She gave her best friend a quick squeeze, careful not to apply _too_ much pressure lest she hear the telltale snaps of _something_ – his bones, probably – being suspect to snapping. "Thanks, Winn. I appreciate that." Kara gave him another smile, as genuine as she could, before she speed-walked out of the training room, to the same rhythm as her hammering heart.

 **...**

Her first mistake was to wander into the locker room.

The second was to make stare at the first thing that caught her attention. Which was the mark that paralleled on its own, pulsing a brighter red as if in acknowledgement to her sighting. There it was, emblazoned on the small of his back, and Kara half entertained the thought that, if she stared long enough, it may disappear from the spot and at the _very_ least reappear somewhere more suitable.

A light chuckle shook her from her thoughts. "Like what you see?"

"Absolutely not," Kara responded icily. "Put on a shirt."

"Relax," Mon El drawled as he drew a black tee over his head. "You're the one with super hearing."

"Oh, so I see Winn is rubbing off you now," Kara muttered as she strode down the stairs to the locker area in threes. "Also, you have it too, so who's really to blame here?"

He laughed another humourless chuckle; Kara did her best to drown out his voice by snapping open her locker. To her brief surprise, he wasn't trying to make conversation for once. Once Kara had thrown her things into her locker, she snapped it shut and turned to him, arms crossed. "So, you're cleared. What are you going to do now?"

"What's it to you?" Mon El questioned, eyebrow raised and his grey eyes absolutely _piercing_.

Her hand throbbed but Kara swallowed it down. "I mean, if you're going to go your own way, the least I can do is to pretend to be civil. For this guy's sake," she raised her right hand. Even with her palm facing her, she could see how brightly it glowed, creating a halo around the silhouette of her hand.

His gaze shifted to her palm before locking back on hers, and Kara felt as if he had trapped her. Somehow, like magnetism, she couldn't move, couldn't dare to move a limb or look anywhere but at him.

"I don't know yet. Maybe look for a place to live – see if I can get contact to, well, anywhere, really." His voice hardened. "You _do_ know they're only clearing me because you can haul my ass back in if I do something you deem stupid."

"You're a Daxamite," she said, almost good-naturedly. "You're almost bound to do something stupid."

"And you're a Kryptonian," he quipped without missing a beat. "You're bound to do something righteous."

"Always," Kara confirmed, allowing one brief smile to fly across her lips. Why not, she was being _civil_ anyways. He returned the smile, _something_ in his eyes other than disdain and contempt for once. He then cleared his throat, in a surprisingly humbling gesture, before he scratched at his back.

"I would say I'll see you around, but somehow I highly doubt that."

Kara shrugged. "Who knows? I thought you were dead for sixteen years."

"And I thought _you_ were for thirty five." And with that, the Daxamite mock saluted. "It's been a pizza."

" _Slice._ "

"That." And once again, he was gone.


	6. Chapter 6

_Double update because of the missed episode this week._

 ** _..._**

Kara supposed he must have been fully cleared, seeing as he was gone by the time she had finished showering and changing into a fresh suit. She exchanged a brief glance with her sister, who only nodded once. It was all the affirmation she needed; Kara inhaled once before exhaling – maybe, finally, her life could fully return to normal.

And he still hadn't returned the next day, or the one after, as she stopped by the DEO office to pick up a few petty missions. Nothing alien related, thankfully; a couple out-of-control fires and the one petty robbery that she managed to stop without having to flaunt her bullet-proof state. Just a couple of thoughtful words and a slow and gentle approach, yet of all things it reminded her of the Daxamite.

Her mark had been completely silent, so it wasn't as if it were prompted by that poignant pinging that told her he was in the vacancy. Instead, this was unprompted, and part of her hated herself for it. She shouldn't care – she told herself she _shouldn't_ care – and yet her thoughts strayed to him. Where was he? Did he find a place to stay? Did he even know what he was doing?

And then the thoughts turned more malicious – was he out there wreaking havoc? Was he using his powers for bad? Surely he'd use them for the good, right? And yet no reports arose of another hero, of a strangely overpowered individual who couldn't fly nor use heat vision like she could. Kara supposed it was a good thing, but it caused a strange flip-flop in her stomach, simultaneously similar and so different from the effect of staring directly in his grey, grey eyes.

A perfect week had passed by the time Kara had landed in the DEO, for once the call more urgent than what was simply a stray fire or a burglary scare. The atmosphere was much tenser this time around, all the agents turned at once when she made her touch down. Kara didn't need x ray vision or super hearing to read their expressions; she swept her cape aside and strode through the congregation.

Alex was beside her immediately. "You're not going to like this."

Kara quirked an eyebrow as they stopped by the bigger monitors. "Multiple homicide at the bar – we got footage." A few button presses later and the screen jolted to life, blurry images focusing. Kara watched, biting her lip.

The image was a bit fuzzy, but when it focused she could see what had everyone so tense. Mon El, who she hadn't seen in a week, was approaching a stranger, something in his clutches glinting in the odd lighting. "What is that?" Kara muttered.

Alex shrugged. "Broken glass?" And then screen-Mon El turned suddenly, at something Kara assumed was audio over visual, and then his eyes flicked to the camera. And then the screen wobbled – Kara assumed someone was tampering with the security camera – before it disrupted in a rush of static.

Alex folded her arms over her torso. "Looks like you were right."

"Pardon?" Kara said, pivoting to turn to her sister.

Alex nudged a shoulder to the screen, still humming with static. "About him. Daxamites. We're going to send a team but – well," she paused.

Kara only nodded shallowly, Winn's words echoing in her head. _You're the only one who can lay a hand on him._

 _They're only clearing me because you can haul my ass back in if I do something you deem stupid._

Alex was pressing something into her hands; Kara looked down, and didn't need to squint to know that the gun was heavily laced with lead. She raised her gaze to meet her sister's. "I hate letting you say _I told you so_."

"Right," Kara said shallowly, and for an odd moment, she actually felt a tinge of remorse. "Well, I'll go on ahead then?"

Alex nodded. "See you there."

 **...**

She wasn't sure _what_ to think on the way there, but when Kara landed – outside a bar, typical – she could already tell the absolute stillness was off. Kara kicked open the door and strode inside, the smell of alcohol flooding her nostrils. Dust made its way to the sky, only visible from the holes in the wall, allowing morose beams of light to break the otherwise dim atmosphere. She could see it then, the three bodies of dead humans. Thankfully, they didn't smell, but Kara loomed closer, scrunching her nose.

With every step she took towards the body, her mark began to vibrate to life. Kara glanced down to the lowly pulsing tattoo. Two conflicting emotions hit her then, the first was grim expectation, a quiet confirmation of what she expected. But the other was much more primitive, from her gut; that something was off and not quite right, and that, despite what it looked like, it couldn't be right.

With her same, slow-burning hand, she flipped the first corpse over. His neck was snapped as his head lolled forward; Kara dropped the corpse quickly. No matter how often she's seen death, she could never quite get around the lurching feeling in her stomach, the thing that kept her grounded in reminding her that everyone else was so _breakable_ compared to her.

She opted to scan instead, noting the other two snapped necks. Kara grimaced as the door opened behind her.

"Where is he?" Alex muttered.

Kara sighed and lifted her gaze, using her still-active x ray to scan the floor above her. "There," she pointed upwards. With that, Alex and her squad marched forward, and though Kara wanted to follow – truly, she did – her feet couldn't move. Her mark pulsed, as if in protest, and she couldn't ignore the sinking feeling from deep within her, which undoubtedly was caused by the three corpses around her, but she also couldn't deny the second cause.

She could hear their voices, Alex's firm commands as she was reading his rights, and then – struggle. A crash, a quiet but audibly sharp inhale of breath. Kara gasped and bolted up the stairs with her super speed. And as she arrived on the landing, as if in slow motion, Mon El's steely eyes met hers; her hand throbbed along with her heart, and she opened her mouth as he did too – but what only came out of his was a scream of pain.

Alex lowered her smoking gun. "You resisted our arrest."

"I didn't do it," Mon El bit back between clenched teeth, gloved hands reaching down to where red blood leaked from his leg.

"Tell that to someone else, _Daxamite,_ " Alex snapped. "Now, are you going to co-operate or do I have to shoot your other leg?"

Mon El shot her another glance but Kara avoided his gaze, if only for the way her palm prickled incessantly, and because she really didn't want to see what was behind his steely gaze.

Instead, Kara listened as cuffs clasped around his wrists, he hissed in pain at the contact.

"Lead cuffs," Alex was explaining. "They'll come off when you go back to the DEO, Daxamite."

"You know, Agent Danvers, I do have a name," he said, his voice getting closer to her as Alex dragged him out. To her sister's non-response, he only clicked his tongue. And as he passed Kara, his last words shook her to the core.

" _They're starting to sound a lot like you._ "

 **...**

"Look, Kara, I don't know why you're so torn up over this," Alex said impatiently. "First you were so adamant he was this terrible person – and now that he's proven it, you're … defending him?"

"Far from it," Kara responded. "But I can't ignore my gut, and this time it's telling me it wasn't him."

She stared at the monitor where Mon El was being kept detained, the same cell as the first day after he had choked her out.

Truthfully, she didn't know why she was doubting him. It went against everything she knew – if anything, she should be celebrating, that she was right all along, that she could actually take pride in being an 'insufferable know it all' because he had _proven_ that he was terrible, that all Daxamites were terrible, and that she was right.

But it wasn't settling properly. For whatever reason, the longer she looked at his downcast gaze, the way he sat with his elbows resting on his raised knees, the more uncomfortable she felt.

"We said we'd judge him for _him,_ " Alex continued. "I don't know if being from Daxam had anything to do with it, but all the evidence seems to point that it was him."

"Did you print the bodies?"

"Of course I did – no identifiable prints. Just a large force that actually _snapped_ their necks like someone was breaking apart Kit Kat bars." Alex shook her head, planting one palm down on the surface of the console and placing the other at her hip. "Kara, _you_ were the ones warning us. You didn't want him to train and – maybe you were right."

Kara blinked. She didn't know _what_ to feel, but she did know multiple emotions were crashing together within her, bursting in explosions of conflicting thoughts and confusing feelings. "I –" she tried, but she couldn't really find the words to express what she thought.

Alex's gaze left hers and traveled down her arm, settling at the growing Mark. Kara raised her hand to look at it too. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry that your soulmate is a criminal."

"I don't think he's a criminal," Kara said – that much she was certain of, anyways.

Alex shrugged. "J'onn will probably be around to rip the truth from him sooner or later. If you _really_ want to go talk to him, I suggest you do it now. Besides, I don't think J'onn's going to take to kindly of him taking advantage of our hospitality."

Kara narrowed her eyes. " _This_ is hospitality?"

Alex narrowed her eyes. "Has this past week made you forget how you felt about Daxamites, the Mark, and _him_?" She shook her head. "I thought this was something you would've condoned, considering how terribly you treated him while he was here."

Kara gaped at her sister, but the words she searched for never came to even the tip of her tongue. Part of her knew her sister was absolutely right. Even she couldn't understand why she couldn't let this go. Kara squared her shoulders. "You're right, Alex. But I'm still going to go talk to him."

"Suit yourself," Alex said, but Kara had already left.

She flew down the stairs to save time, landing a few feet away from his cell. Mon El glanced upwards, his grey gaze catching hers – and she her hand throb, her breath trip up in her throat – before _he_ let go this time, releasing her.

"Here to gloat?" He was saying before she got close enough to hear him without her superhearing. "If so, I'd like to pass, thank you."

"What?" Kara said. "Is that the only reason why you think I came here?"

"Why else?" Mon El shot. "Last time I was in a cell and you were on the other side, you were yelling at me about how whether or not I'd attack you again. So I'd say that, seeing as you've pegged me as an asshole since day one, tacking on _murderous_ would be why you're here today."

Rage finally beat out the rest of her multiple emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. Her voice raised in anger. "That's because you _did_ attack me, you Daxamite!"

"And here you are, the Kryptonian," he sneered back. "Doing the righteous thing once again, especially if it condemns the frat boys of the universe."

"I-I am doing the right thing," Kara spat out. "Meanwhile, what did you do? You _resisted arrest—"_

"—your sister came at me pointing a _lead gun_ , what did you want me to expect –"

"—you can break her, I've been telling you over and over, you have to _control_ your powers –"

"—oh, don't act like you had any hope for me in the first place –"

"—I did have a small, tiny, glimmer of hope that you wouldn't be a complete _asshole_ –"

"—nope, instead I'm the _Daxamite that murdered three people_ –"

"—I _never said that_ -"

"—you _implied that by_ – wait," he paused, and Kara hadn't realized her tightly her fists had been clenched, how her nails dug into her palms until they almost drew blood. She didn't realize how brightly her Mark was shining, how it pulsed in time with her heartbeat, already flared with their argument.

His grey eyes caught hers, and once again she felt completely powerless in his gaze.

"You're on my side?"

Kara sighed. She tried to relax her grip but it felt rigid in place. "No, not entirely - look, I don't think it was you."

"What?"

As his defenses dropped one by one, so did Kara's own. She relaxed her shoulders and she smoothened her hands along the pleats of her skirt. "As I said, I may not like you, but I'm not going to let that cloud my judgement. Anymore," she added hastily as his eyebrow raised. "I don't think you did it."

"Well, that's new, because they just marched straight to arrest me before actually investigating. I know," he said, tapping the sides of his head. "I have super hearing too."

Kara sighed and leaned on one hip. "That would be my fault."

"You think?" Mon El said, a trace of his earlier disdain still present in his tone.

"I know, and I'm sorry." Kara said. "I can tell J'onn to let you out again."

"The Martian? I kind of prefer having my thoughts to myself, thanks," and he wiggled his eyebrows. Kara rolled her eyes. She paused, glancing at the release switch, and before she could talk herself out of it, she slapped the red button.

The glass hissed and rose; his expression shifted from a guarded curiosity to genuine surprise as she stepped forward, leaning on where the glass patrician had earlier separated them. "Look, I don't think you did it, okay?" Kara said. "Either you're going to tell the DEO that and actually defend yourself, or J'onn can come collect your testimony. Your choice."

Mon El's expression twisted to one of conflict, before he bit his lip and sighed. "Fine. I miscalculated okay? As you know, Daxam orbits a red star."

"I do know." Kara said quietly. "The fact you have stairs astounded me, until I had to walk up them myself."

His lips briefly twitched into a smile. "So you also know we don't have powers on our home world. I guess our sparring match felt _normal_ , and not, well, _super._ " He shrugged. _"_ There were a few things I broke by accident, but I swear I never would have hurt anyone."

"No bar fights, no dumb bets, no threats because you hit on the same girl…?"

Mon El let out a small laugh. "Is that how much faith you have on Daxamites?"

Kara couldn't stop a half-grin from pulling the corner of her lip upward. "To be fair, when I came here, you thought I was immediately going to yell at you."

"True," Mon El said, almost fairly. "But last time that happened, you _did_ yell at me."

Kara laughed a mostly-humourless laugh. "So is that what happened then? You _miscalculated, broke a few things, but swear that you didn't hurt anyone_?"

Mon El slapped a hand over his right pectoral, raising the other in a vaguely familiar gesture. "I swear on Rao. The Martian can confirm."

" _J'onn,"_ Kara corrected. "And… good." With that, she turned around, sweeping her cape behind her. "You'll get a chance to testify once J'onn comes in here. So long as you don't resist he won't rip the testimony from you."

She took three steps before his voice rang out behind her. "Hey, can I ask you a question?"

Kara turned expectantly. Mon El had gotten up. He leaned against the frame of his cell, hands clutching the upper beam where the glass had disappeared into. "You have no reason to trust me. You have even less because I'm a Daxamite." He said slowly. And then his eyes caught her again. "So why?"

Kara hesitated. What exactly _had_ compelled all of this? As Alex reminded her, just a week ago, she was intent on him being a terrible person, a judgement she made almost immediately. Her hand tingled as she stared back at his gaze, and she chewed her lip thoroughly before answering. "I guess there's some stock in this," she raised her hand, the Mark glowing vehemently as it was emblazoned on her skin. "I'd like to think someone I'm fated to wouldn't go out of his way _punching_ people."

"Huh," he said thoughtfully. "I guess I have to eliminate that as a pass time."

Kara rolled her eyes. "Very funny."

"I thought so too." And Mon El smiled, and Kara noticed the corner of his eyes crinkled with his grin. "I'll see you around, _soulmate._ "

"Don't get me wrong, I still _very much_ do not like you," Kara said without missing a beat.

"And here I thought I was making some progress," he said with in an overly rueful tone. Kara turned around, if only so he couldn't see the playful smile that refused to vacate her lips.

"Hah. You've got a _long_ way to go, Daxamite."


	7. Chapter 7

phew, sorry for the wait. Fic not abandoned - just finished my semester and I'm having my convocation from my first degree in June. Was moving too, so that ate up time.

In this chapter we kind of wrap up the plot stuff, which honestly I didn't expect to happen - I didn't think the fic would be as plot based or what not (I certainly didn't plan ahead) so I kind of paved the road to have it return to a more slice-of-life feel.

Thanks for waiting and I'm sorry for taking so long for a new chapter! This one's on the longer side so I hope it makes up for it.

(As always, my tumblr handle is the same as here: therewithasmile. I post more life updates and usually memes/shit posts, if you'd like to check that out.)

* * *

Kara couldn't stop fidgeting as she waited, each second that passed punctuated with another tap from her low heeled wedges. She could feel Alex's eyes on her, watching every movement as closely as she observed _his._ However, as expected, J'onn's face remained impassively neutral – if anything, a clear indicator of his shapeshifting if _she_ had any say in it – as Mon El finished presenting his side with a half-whispered 'please' thrown for good measure. The Martian inhaled sharply and his eyes flicked to the side, too fast for a human to catch. But, to her Kryptonian reflexes, it seemed to stretch an inordinate number of heartbeats, as she felt him strip right through her defenses. And then his gaze was back, glued to the Daxamite before him, and Kara couldn't help but to cough, to take off her glasses and rub them needlessly into her sweater.

" _This is a serious implication."_ J'onn was saying. _"Regardless of whether you did so or not, you did not surrender. You could have hurt one of our agents."_

Kara took great care in placing her spectacles back onto her nose, adjusting them once.

" _Could have is the operant thing here."_

" _Doesn't matter,"_ J'onn replied firmly. Kara didn't notice the faint burn of her Mark as her fingers played with the hem of her shirt. _"We can't acknowledge that here – it doesn't work that way. We still have to detain you, minimally."_ And then J'onn sighed weightily. _"No, we're not doing this because of any predisposition I – or any of us - may have against your kind. This is to set an example. For all aliens, and for those who have decided to harbour us, who have provided us with a home."_

Their gazes individually, Kara could handle; but she could feel both of them stare at her. She coughed and fruitlessly readjusted her glasses. Again.

" _... For how long?"_ Mon El was saying.

" _Until we find the real culprit,"_ and Kara could hear the finality in the last syllables of his words. There was another frustrated noise from Mon El before he wove his way between the desks, past Winn, who, to his credit, was already in the process of swivelling away from the scene, and veered instead toward her.

Kara swallowed quickly. "It's not that bad," Kara said, as optimistically as she could. "It sounds like they're willing to drop charges –"

Mon El's grey eyes halted the words before they could pour from her mouth – not for any reason other than the sheer _depths_ of them, devoid of the usual combination of half-baked mischief and aloofness that always ticked her off so much.

"I'm still being detained," he said soullessly.

"And I'm saying, it could be _worse_ ," Kara insisted. "It sounds temporary."

Mon El dropped his gaze to his feet. "Right – _superhearing_. I thought if it came down to it, he could just look into my mind." His voice grew suddenly bitter. "So why do I feel like, regardless if he did that or not, nothing would change – I'd still be detained?"

Kara _knew_ he didn't want that question answered, but she couldn't help herself, no thanks to the Mark. "It's _justice_. You can't just waltz in with a quivering lip and expect to be let off when you still did something wrong, though a lesser wrong. And it's more procedural than anything. Think of it this way – you don't have to pay any rent!"

The look he gave her stopped her blabbering mouth in its tracks.

"Why do you suddenly care so much?"

His voice was so dejected, his words surely nothing but a throwaway to him, a slip up; still, Kara felt her betraying heart pound at his suggestion. Heat rose to her cheeks as her mind reeled to say something, _anything,_ to explain. But those grey eyes merely ripped from hers, taking her throbbing heart with her, as one of his hands reached to scratch where Kara _knew_ his mark burned as much as hers.

"I'll be in my room. Goodnight."

And before Kara's brain had a chance to catch up, let alone reciprocate the niceties, he was already long gone.

* * *

A knock on her apartment door had Kara springing to her feet. A quick scan showed her Alex waiting patiently beyond it; Kara inhaled and wrenched it open.

"Hey," Alex said. "Can we talk?"

Kara took a step back, closing the door behind her sister. For whatever reason, it was as if a force prevented her from looking Alex in the eye. Truthfully, Kara didn't know what to make of it all: that, and the turmoil of emotion that she had been _trying_ to parse for herself this past half hour. Instead, they plopped down on the couch and Kara lowered the volume on whatever was playing in the background, not that she had been paying attention to it. Alex knew of course, based off the way her expression shifted as Kara leaned forward and then back into her seat.

"You're not happy with what J'onn decided."

" _Mon El_ isn't." Kara said quickly, before she dropped her hands back into her lap, re-angling so she faced Alex. "I think it's fair, and I told him so," she supplemented insistently.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "I know," she said, "but I also know you're upset. I can tell - I'm your sister."

Kara exhaled, careful not to do so with enough force as to blow her sister back several feet, or accidentally freeze her face. "And I hate that you can see right through me," she muttered. The tumble of emotion within her churned further, each rotation bringing whatever that resentment _was_ closer to the surface. "You're right Alex - I'm upset."

"At me?"

There was nothing hurt about the way Alex said the words. Regardless, Kara shook her head.

"J'onn?" Another headshake. "Mon El?"

"No – well," Kara paused, trying to put words on how those endless grey eyes, devoid of that _spark_ made her feel. The best she could manage was, "he was different today."

"Yeah," Alex said. "He got _arrested_."

Kara allowed an amused but brief smile tug at her lips, though it didn't quite fit amongst her emotional landscape. A few beats later and Alex was chewing her lip, a thoughtful expression in her warm brown eyes.

"So you don't know, hm?"

Kara shrugged. "I guess I just have a lot on my mind. I think I need to sleep," she said truthfully. Her sister's eyes filled with understanding, but where it normally eased some of the tension from her burdens, this time, it did next to nothing.

Alex placed a hand on her knee, the gesture surely meant to be comforting. "Are you going to be okay with this – him still in your hair?"

"Me?" Kara blurted incredulously. "What about _you_? I can avoid him; you _work_ there."

"Not my Soulmate," Alex said simply. With less of a jolt and more of a sinking feeling in her stomach, Kara remembered her Mark. She rubbed at it in the absence of the usual prickling that she realized she had gotten used to feeling. She shrugged.

"I… may have pegged him wrong."

"Maybe we all have," Alex said, before her sister gripped her shoulders. "Go to sleep. We'll talk tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah," Kara said, and she merely watched as her sister gave another half-smile. A simple quirk of her lips, before she gathered her coat into her arms and picked her way quietly out of her apartment.

For several moments, only snatches of thoughts half-formed played in Kara's mind. His face, his eyes, his voice – the way her mark burned in response to each of them, to even her mere thoughts _now_ , was all still new to her. Perhaps that week away had spoiled Kara, allowed her to forget. But she knew better now. All of those feelings had burned into her, had made her think twice about him, and she was sure that even if he were released, if he were in a different country, even another planet, she would still, somehow, end up thinking about him.

It was that thought that lingered on Kara's mind as she eventually rose from her couch and drifted into her room. And, after that long day, she was asleep by the time her head hit the cushions.

 **...**

The next morning was no better.

Kara chased the tails of her dreams before they disappeared completely, bliss from the churning emotion she had felt the night before. But now, awash in the natural light of her sunrise-facing bedroom window, all of the thoughts had returned tenfold. Kara truly tried her best to keep them from her mind as she wrestled on an unwrinkled blouse and shimmied a skirt up around her waist. It wasn't until she was in line for her latte, trying to haphazardly wrangle the wrinkles of her shirt of choice discreetly and without resorting to shortcuts of Kryptonian origin in public, did she remember that there wasn't anyone _at_ the office who would chew her out for her presentation. So when she rounded the line and gave a smile to the barista and ordered just _one_ latte, whole milk, Kara felt herself blush as she merely offered a smile at the him, who was well aware of Cat's leave of absence from her own orders throughout the week.

"Just thinking if I wanted a bagel," Kara tried to offer as an explanation at the momentary bewilderment that must have settled on her face. Judging by the barista's expression, she didn't convince him, either.

So when the call to come to the DEO came halfway through the work day, Kara was more than happy to re-use the lactose intolerant excuse to no one in particular, as she arrived at the DEO, hand flaring before she had arrived. Her landing was met with another debriefing agent, who was describing in quick detail the alien offender who _did_ do a number on the citizens and, in her words, _may_ have been responsible for the incident that had implicated Mon El. At the mention of his name, an odd prickle played at Kara's neck. She didn't have to look to know that the man in question was watching her, with perhaps the same interest that she had felt just the night before.

Either way, something about the way her Mark burned – _in satisfaction –_ was enough to distract Kara.

"…Backup?"

Kara's attention snapped back to the agent in front of her, before she blinked owlishly and rediscovered her voice. "Pardon me?" she managed.

The agent's gaze flickered to beyond her shoulder, in a gesture that was _almost_ understanding, before resettling on her. "Will you require backup?" the agent asked again. Surprise shot through Kara as she blinked again. "We don't mean to assume," the agent said quickly. "But if they were able to overwhelm the Daxamite…"

"I'm stronger than him," Kara said. And it felt _good_ to say out loud, not that Mon El didn't know that as the truth when she handed him back on his ass back in their sparring days. "I can take this guy."

"Roger that, Supergirl." With a quick nod, Kara lifted her palms from the debriefing table and striding away.

 **...**

This bar was as seedy as the last – the windows were grimy, it smelled fairly damp and musky in the room, and Kara wasn't sure when the floors were last washed, considering the buildup of dirt and grime that had accumulated across what otherwise could have been charming hardwood flooring.

The patrons were no different from the surroundings; dingy and frumpled looking, which made the whole ordeal worse. They saw her approach and their eyes widened – surely the emblem on her chest, exposed like this, meant something was wrong – and people were already ushering their way out, as if to avoid confrontation. Only one didn't move, sitting over their drink, lazily stirring a black stir-stick in whatever clear liquid that was in the half-washed glass.

"Preying on the poorer folk of town? That's pretty low, even for you," Kara taunted. The man didn't look up, only continuing to pensively stir the contents of his glass. Kara scrunched her nose. "You didn't think this _modus operandi_ would disguise you for long, did you?"

"You found me quickly," was the only response she managed to elicit out of the man. There was something off with his voice, a strange echo that Kara couldn't quite place. "But that was the point."

"A threat?" Kara mused.

"An invitation, actually."

And as Kara lunged forward, an odd pressure froze her in her tracks, seemingly holding her in place. And then a blistering force blew the air from her lungs, as _something_ – something not even tangible – felt as if it were literally squeezing the air out of her lungs. Another spike of pressure blossomed from her neck, and to Kara's utmost horror, her very head twitched in heavy resistance against the sudden force, no, _will,_ to snap in one direction that was surely fatal.

"They told me you were righteous. Proud. They were right."

As much as Kara would have liked to respond, any means to form words only came out as half choked sobs. The pressure only increased, and the sobs became sputters as her body attempted to adapt to the situation. She tried to draw breath but it was as if her lungs were working at half capacity, unable to force any more breath into her alveoli. And the pressure increased _again_ , and now she _did_ feel snaps as her she used all parts of her body to fight against it.

Panic welled in her chest as she realized rapidly that she really didn't have a way out of this. Her vision began to blur, and when the figure lifted the hood from his face, she couldn't even make out any features in specifics to identify what species her attacker even _was_. And he was saying something, but she wasn't sure _what_ , and all she knew as that her breathing got worse and her neck was straining, so painfully, and it would just be easier, effortless even, if she just listened…

Kara wasn't sure what happened in the next few moments. But she was vaguely aware that she had crumpled onto the floor, and the first breath she took felt like it belonged to new lungs. There was more talking, but even that took effort still. Kara instead focused on breathing, sipping wonderful air to refill her lungs.

She may have passed out again.

She wasn't really sure anymore.

 **...**

When Kara woke next, she was in the DEO med bay. She sat up quickly, and relief filled her when she noticed that nothing was attached, or inserted into, her, which meant that whatever happened to her wasn't fatal or major. Instead, it just seemed like she needed a long rest, though it didn't account to the soreness that screamed from her neck, when it had fought really hard to remain straight what felt like moments ago.

"Hey."

And then the second sensation registered: the searing in her palm.

"Are you _stupid_?"

"Mm," Kara replied, and she finally dragged her gaze up to meet Mon El's. "No. What gave you that impression?"

"The fact you went by yourself," the Daxamite said point blank. His arms were crossed over his torso, hands tucks into his armpits in a gesture that was oddly familiar to her. But she shook that thought away.

"What?" She narrowed her eyes. "I almost always take missions on my own."

"But you didn't this time," he pointed out. Kara sighed.

"Do you not remember what happened last time? Their necks were snapped, and no prints. Just gone. I was _protecting_ them."

"And in turn no one was protecting you," Mon El said stiffly. The words were odd, stinging, and before Kara could question it, he merely shook his head. "Rich, coming from you. _I'm stronger than him_ ," he imitated.

 _That_ brought a flush onto Kara's face. "You eavesdropped-"

"- Not the first time you did, either—"

"- Is arguing all you two are good at?" Winn's voice called, almost causing her to jump. Kara whipped her head around as he strode through the door. Winn raised an eyebrow at the reaction. "Woah there. Did I just… surprise you?"

Kara blinked, and then realized the sudden jump in her heart was just that. "I guess so."

Winn blinked. "Cool. Anyways, it looks like you're awake so we can go over vitals. No physical damage anywhere, which is odd, because the previous victims definitely had broken necks, but the same thing. No physical damage.

Kara swung her legs around and away from Mon El, facing Winn to give him her full attention. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the other victims had no damage aside from," Winn cranked his neck upwards in an odd angle, a movement that had Kara flinching in reaction. "So it seems that it was the same with you."

Kara _hmmed._ "It definitely felt like someone had grabbed me and squeezed me, but it was more than that. It was like-"

"- like your brain was willing you to do it?" Was now J'onn's voice, and for the second time in one day, Kara was actually caught off-guard by the entrance of the Martian. "It seemed like our foe operated in two levels – some psychokinesis, but also mixed with powerful suggestion. So while your Kryptonian body is physically stronger and tougher than a human's, you're just as susceptible to a willed suggestion. Combined with the suggestion to snap your own neck, and your own conviction of the physical pain, with the psychokinesis…"

Kara blinked, mind reeling. So she had almost died – something she wasn't used to experiencing, and yet an occurrence that had been appearing more frequently than she would've liked – or expected. "So you saved my life."

"I had a suspicion I'd be needed," was J'onn's simple reply.

Kara lifted her hands to her neck. It sure _felt_ bruised, but knowing now that it was in her head – it was as if a facet of the pain had lifted, and while it still ached from what was surely the physical strain of the injury, some of the odd throbbing and dull aching no longer accented her soreness.

"You spoke in past tense."

"I don't like using my powers for matters like this," J'onn continued unerringly. "But I see why it was necessary, and so it is."

"You _ripped_ the ability from him?" Mon El interjected, and Kara was suddenly reminded that he was still in the room.

J'onn's gaze drifted from hers and went beyond. "I did what I thought was necessary," he said. "And with that kind of suggestion, used for bad, we can't allow it. It's not gone permanently; I merely restricted access to that power, and should he need it reattached, well, he'd have to show us his change."

No response came from Mon El, and so Kara took the moment to recapture his attention. " _Thank_ you, J'onn."

The Martian's expression warmed as it returned to hers. "You're welcome, Supergirl. We're a team, and you don't have to take it on your own. Now get some rest," he said, almost paternally. "You may need more sleep, especially now that you're aware that the pain you feel right now is of your own brain's doing."

It made sense logically, when he put it that way, and yet it was still somehow baffling to her. Maybe she was still in the recovery phase – after all, she had been more consecutively surprised and caught off guard in the last twenty minutes than she had in the last two years – before she merely nodded. She barely observed Winn gesturing to Mon El, noting that the two began to converse in quiet voices, and the last thing she saw was Mon El's gaze, and he glanced fleetingly back before he closed the med bay doors behind him.

 **...**

She was discharged just a few hours later, after being adrift in a black, dreamless sleep. Something about her neck still ached as she stalked her way out around the desks and work spaces of the DEO. Granted, her hand _did_ tip her off before her ears, and yet Kara was relieved to know that her hearing was back. She heard a heavy bass punctuated by the sound of regular punches, growing louder and louder as she rounded the corner to the gyms. Surely there he was, strafing to the beat of _Gorillaz_ , throwing punches into –

"My punching bag," she said again. But Mon El gave no sign of acknowledgement, as he sunk his right hook into the reddish skin of the alien hide it was made out of.

"Winn sanctioned it to me."

Kara was simply too tired to summon indignation. "He doesn't have the auth- whatever."

Mon El lowered his fists and his usual shit-eating smirk was back on his face – to her odd, half flop in her stomach. "So I have your permission?"

"Maybe while you're still being detained. So you don't go stir-crazy." Kara amended. "And _Gorillaz_?"

"Oh, it's their new album," he said almost enthusiastically. "Winn tells me they're a _thing_."

And something about the way he smiled to himself, like was so _proud_ to be in on some secret or trend, made him look almost boyishly goofy. Something deep in her stirred when Kara realized that she used to mistake that enthusiasm,that tone and that smirk and that _look_ , as mockery. How did she ever see it that way? Now she could tell it was genuine pride, almost like a…

Kara snickered.

Mon El's grey eyes widened. "What?"

"Nothing," Kara said quickly, fidgeting as she stood up straighter. "They are a _thing._ But kind of an underground thing."

"An underground thing?" He repeated, his eyebrows furrowing together. And Kara couldn't help the little giggle that escaped her again.

"Not literally – nevermind." Kara rolled her shoulders back as he sank back into his lunge. "So how's detainment?"

Mon El scoffed, throwing a punch into her bag. "Here to gloat?"

Kara rolled her eyes. "It's not the only thing us Kryptonians do, you know." He laughed at that, punctuated by the sudden accented bass of the song playing over the loudspeakers.

"Boring," he responded, before throwing another punch in. "The most interesting part was when you came back passed out." Kara's jaw dropped as he laughed at himself, straightening. "Very dramatic, you know, hands splayed out and J'onn – sorry, _Hank_ – walking in, with carrying you like you'd died—"

She couldn't help it, she threw out a soft yet firm punch against his bicep. Mon El flinched and groaned, but it didn't stop the playful smile that twitched on his lips. If Kara were to be truthful, she'd call the near identical smile that stretched across her own mouth just that, too.

And then his expression sobered, just a bit, before he threw another punch into the bag. "I don't know how I feel about him, though."

"J'onn?" Kara questioned. His response was only another _mmm_ , accented with a blow and the squeak of alien hide in protest. " _I_ trust him. He's pretty much watched over Alex and I since…."

The punching stopped as Kara trailed off. Mon El was looking at her, she knew, and yet she couldn't really find the words to say the next part until he prompted her with a semi-probing "since…?"

"Our father – her father – vanished."

It felt weird to admit out loud, especially to someone who was a stranger at best. But it felt nice to tell _someone_ , to get it off her chest, and maybe it was even better to tell a stranger, someone who didn't know her as well and who wouldn't start enacting inappropriately, providing sympathy where she didn't really look for it.

And, if she were to put _any_ stock into her Mark, maybe that had something to do with it, too.

It was almost as if he too were thinking along the same lines, based off the way his gaze had affixed itself upon the red interlacing patterns that glowed on her skin. And once again, his hand reached back to skim over where his identical Mark was etched into him.

"I understand that," Mon El said. "My father too, he's gone."

Kara blinked. She hadn't expected to find something in common with the Daxamite – let alone something like this. But then, in retrospect, it made sense. "Was that how you ended up in the royal guard?"

"What?" Mon El said, before his eyes suddenly filled with understanding. "No, because of the other thing."

Whatever he was alluding to, Kara didn't follow. It wasn't until something akin to almost _hurt_ crossing his eyes did she catch on. "Oh, you mean the Daxam flares?"

"Yeah," Mon El said. His lip curled, and Kara suddenly understood. For the fourth time that day, _minimum_ , surprise filled her once more. "Did you not _know…_?"

"Winn told me," Mon El said flatly. _Oh_ , Kara thought, and part of her was still processing the fact that it seemed like _he_ had expected that she would be the one to tell him.

"I thought you knew. I would've told you, it's not something I was withholding from you on purpose," Kara murmured.

The steel grey softened, and Kara realized that his gaze had that spark again. There was something easier about him being upset at her, yet still him, than not him at all. "I know," he was saying.

Silence fell in the room, save the pulsing beats still coming from the loud speaker, and despite Kara's brain wreaking through _anything_ to bring up, there was nothing. Something about the way he held himself told her that he, too, was thinking, perhaps trying to find something to say too. But the silence only stretched on, the tension thicker and her Mark getting somehow maddeningly louder, before she swallowed, the sound audible through the half-monotone voice droning in the room.

"I um, am going to try to get some sleep."

"Sounds like a good idea," Mon El said instantly, almost as if he were relieved he had something to respond to. "I'm just going to be here. Punching," he finished sheepishly. And Kara couldn't help it when the corners of her mouth crumpled upwards. "Goodnight."

Her heart thumped somewhat unevenly. Kara blinked - Rao, the way she must look right now probably confirmed his earlier suspicions of her being stupid – and before she knew it, he'd already turned back towards the bag, fists raised once more.

But it didn't stop her. "Goodnight," she returned, before she whisked her way out of the gymnasium and closed the door behind her.

Kara didn't miss his small smirk that she caught, just beyond the outline of her punching bag.


	8. Chapter 8

First: sorry for not having been around for so long. Life kicked me in the butt and I've been going through a lot of hard times recently. As a result, ALL and ANY writing has been tossed out the window. But I've been listening to music that's tickled my writing muse, and it seemed to fit this pair/story the most so I decided to pick it back up - or rather, finally put it on the forefront and not ignore it any longer.

On Ao3 these two chapters are separated, but I bundled them together for the ffnet release as it's kinda meant to be one. The first half, therefore, was mostly written in the summer before I got stuck on it. The second half flows a lot faster as a result. It'll also pave the way for actual headway in the relationship to be made, as you'll soon see. So these two sillies will stop beating around the bush very soon. Also, due to the nature of these chapters being put together, it means that the chapter count will now differ between this story and the Ao3 one. Just a heads up.

There's a lot of mass effect references because that's probably the most comprehensive sci-fi universe that I can pull knowledge from. I know what Kara does is a bit out of character for her so I hope I set it up to be believable - I think she doesn't necessarily have a love for space (though she does) as much as the interface and everything is a huge nostalgia thing for her. Oh, and pride, and she doesn't want to be shown up by Mon El, and maybe she wants to... flex her knowledge in front of him. Definitely not impress him.

* * *

"-And so it seems like they weren't operating on their own. We've seen them around but they're generally a pacifist race. Are you okay?"

Kara blinked, returning to the present. Her hands flat against the DEO console, She lifted her palms and placed them at her hips instead. "Yeah," she said, and she made sure to relax, to unscrunch her nose and widen her eyes. "Distracted," she amended.

Because her soulmate stared back at her from across the room, a smirk crossing his lips.

Alex rolled her eyes. "I thought you were okay with him."

"Okay with him _being here_ ," Kara corrected, and she merely rolled her eyes as the Daxamite gave a jovial salute. It would've been nice if she could _will_ her pinging hand back into complacency, but knowing how that would just result in disappointment, she instead refocused her attention to her sister. "Sorry," she said apologetically.

"No no," Alex said. "I'm sorry. Order came from higher up not to keep him in a cell."

"Cells are for the guilty," was J'onn's fatherly tone, before the disguised martian took his spot beside her sister. "Which he isn't. So we thought it would be more hospitable to allow him the freedom to wander. It won't be a problem, I hope?"

Under his warm, yet somehow hard, chocolate brown gaze, Kara merely bit her lip and shook her head. J'onn's expression softened and twisted to one of understanding, before the usual smooth mask glided over to mask his emotions once more. "They call themselves _Tror'ork_. We've got about five in the alien registry, though our friend is not one of them."

Kara nodded along, trying to replace his infuriating smirk and exaggerated salute with the image of the assailant in her mind. She frowned. "I don't recall any defining features."

"That's because there barely is any, like Kryptonians. But I wouldn't worry about it," J'onn dismissed. "I surmise there aren't others of his kind who are involved in all this." Kara watched as her superior's eyes dragged from her, and with a jolt she realized he already knew what was preoccupying her brain. As if confirmation, he gave a single chuckle.

"Winn's training him, you know?"

Kara blanched. _"What._ "

* * *

"Ow ow _ow,_ Kara, that _hurts—_ "

She knew it wasn't enough to _actually_ cause damage, but it didn't stop her grip from tightening. "You're _training_ him?" she hissed.

"Well, why not?" Winn's brown eyes were wide, though she could also see the guilt in them. "He's got strength, the speed, and he's your _friend –_ "

"— _he's not—_ " Kara cut off her seething hiss as she registered a footstep behind her, and her brain switched gears. "That doesn't matter, and you can't just let him take my punching bag, by the way –"

"—If you're talking about me," was Mon El's voice from behind her, "I think you keep forgetting I have _superhearing_ –"

"—He's stuck here anyways, so I thought I'd help him out and be productive," Winn said quickly. "Now can you let me go, _please_?"

Kara sighed and stared down at her hand, emblem blazing strongly in a reminder of their _real_ relationship. She loosened her grip. Her best friend instantly shot his hand away and rubbed at where her fingers had clenched only moments ago, only causing Kara to sigh again. "Sorry," she offered, almost sheepishly.

"Apology accepted," Winn muttered. "I thought –"he glanced upwards and then lowered his voice, "—thought you guys were getting along."

"We are," Mon El piped up as he traipsed towards them. Kara did her best to maintain impassiveness even as her hand burned brighter, like a homing beacon. "I think we're actually becoming friends," he mused, his voice dangerously close to her ear. Kara only stared back at Winn, whose expression twisted into one of half confusion but half understanding, only choosing to nod slowly in accordance.

Kara sighed.

"And you're welcome to join in with the sparring," Mon El continued. Kara glanced at him through the corners of her lashes, and she tried to ignore the wide-set grin that had spread across his lips. "I've learned a few things that I want to try. Nothing proves otherwise like a good rematch."

"I'll pass, thanks," Kara said with half a huff. She looked at Winn, who only shot her back a helpless glance. Kara inhaled once and exhaled out with a huff. She thought she was over it, she really did – and maybe some of what Mon El had said was true. So why did she feel so… frustrated?

It was as if the Mark knew too, for it wouldn't stop _burning_. But she ignored its presence and gave Winn half a smile in apology. "Although let me know if he somehow manages to punch harder than me."

And she left him there, bewildered, and it wasn't until she had closed the metal doors behind her did she hear a quiet yet distinct, _"can I even punch harder than her?_ "

* * *

Kara heard him coming before his voice even started talking, though she refused to look up as she sat on a bench in the locker room. His footsteps were definitely succinct from human ones, she had realized; they were heavier, more deliberate, oddly grounded in a sense.

"Why don't you want me to be a superhero?"

His question was innocent, sure, but Kara did her best to avoid his grey gaze.

"You found me," she said instead. He gave a half chuckle.

"Yeah," he scoffed, raising his hand. "I've got a honing beacon." He popped the last syllables in a way that made Kara's lip curl and eyes fixate on her own mark.

Silence stretched between them as he snapped open a locker; she could hear the shuffling of belongings and activity, only half-heartedly tracking and picturing what he was doing with her mind. "You didn't answer," Mon El finally said, and Kara dragged her gaze from her hand and to the floor.

"I don't know," Kara said truthfully. "And believe me, I wish I did."

She heard the footsteps approach her and, before she could stop herself, she locked eyes with him. If she were truthful, Kara would admit that it was dangerously easy to lose herself in those grey depths; she was also painfully aware of his current shirtless state. "Put a shirt back on," she snapped in an involuntarily kneejerk reaction to her observation.

Mon El merely wiggled his eyebrows. "I find that this usually elicits a different response," he said cheekily, but he did have a black shirt curled around his wrists, a shirt that he wrestled back over his head. He pulled the material over his body, rolling over the spot where she merely _knew_ the Mark was etched into his skin as well.

 _Daxamites,_ she couldn't help but to think with a twinge of bitterness. Their attitudes always seeming ready for a fling, even the placement of the Mark suggestive. _Daxam_ , she thought, and she couldn't help but to recall the bewilderment of her loss of power on their surface, how she couldn't feel the warmth of a yellow sun basking into her skin.

"Do you miss Daxam?"

She said the words before she realized the thought had even crossed her mind. Even Mon El, too, seemed to hesitate; shirt mostly covering his torso, his fingers lingered along the hem of the garment. "Here and there," he admitted. "I left a long time ago."

There was something in his tone that she couldn't quite discern, an odd finality that, in many ways, Kara hadn't heard from him before. Though his answer only brought more questions, there was something stopping her from prying further. And for Mon El, it was clear that the conversation was over, on his terms this time.

And then there was playfulness back in his voice, a lightheartedness that somehow didn't quite reach his eyes. "So are you saying that you not wanting me to be a superhero isn't because I'm a Daxamite…?"

" _No,"_ Kara said immediately, _too_ quickly, and his eyebrow quirked. Heat rushed to her cheeks, not quite managing to divert from her hand. "Okay, a little," she relented.

A small laugh bubbled from Mon El's lips. "Somehow, that's still unsurprising. Though a little hurtful." And she wasn't sure if he was aware of his own movements, but he reached behind him, fingers grazing along the fabric that covered his own mark. "What would I have to do to change your mind?"

 _It's already changing,_ Kara thought to herself, but this was _definitely_ one of the ones she didn't want to voice for her own benefit. Maybe that alien had been right – that she was _prideful –_ but it didn't feel like an insult. And she knew she wasn't the best poker player, but this time she really did want to keep her cards to herself.

"Your forehead's doing that thing," he said, rousing Kara from her thoughts. "When you crease your forehead when you're thinking? Or stressed."

"Wonder why," Kara muttered. "Don't you have anything better to do, or training to get back to?"

His expression shifted, and Kara for a second wondered if she said too much. But then she saw something else, like realization, dawning in his eyes, and before she knew it, that _smirk_ was back on his hand. "Not like you didn't place yourself in the locker room on purpose."

Kara's cheeks flamed red as confusion and defensiveness shot through her spine. "What does that mean?" she blurted.

His smirk only grew. "Don't play poker. I feel like you'd be terrible at it," Mon El said nonchalantly, yet there was some kind of _knowing_ in his voice that only replaced her defensiveness with annoyance. She had no clue _why_ he'd suddenly look so smug, like he had it all figured out. "Oh come on Kara," he sighed, his voice now almost disappointed. "You know I'd find you."

"Yeah," Kara muttered. "Mark, remember?"

And it was then that he caught her eyes again, a brilliant hue of grey shining into her cornflower blue.

"And that's why you didn't leave the DEO to get away from me? Or the locker room, for that matter?"

The question, which she was quite aware was entirely rhetorical in nature, was somehow _suffocating_. "I work here," she muttered under her breath. Something in his prying expression shifted – it was a small crinkle in his eyebrows, a half smirk – and she sighed. "I wanted to know about your training, that's all."

"Because I'm dangerous?"

It was his usual tone: aloof, easily erring on smug, but for the first time, Kara detected something new reflected in the undertones of his voice he tried to hide – almost _self-consciousness._ Maybe she really _was_ losing it. "Because I _am_ curious. I'm only human – er, Kryptonian – you know the phrase."

"I actually don't," Mon El said, almost testily, but a small smile quirked at the corner of his lip. He sat down, elbows on his knees, hands entwined. "Ask away."

Kara swallowed. "Winn isn't… _actually_ … training you to be a superhero, is he?"

His grey eyes were amused. "What do you mean?"

"Like speed training, bullet deflection…" Kara paused, racking her brain for some more training exercises she'd administer in Winn's place. "Civilian evacuation…"

And maybe it was due to the complete, unabashed honesty that was crystal in his gaze, or her the mark that seemed to provide her a new consciousness and reading for her to cross reference, or maybe – if she were completely honest – an understanding of him she'd recently developed that didn't rely on any mating marks or _anything_. But when he bit his lip and broke eye contact, she didn't _need_ him to answer for her to know.

"Nope."

"Mm," was her only response, and Kara fought back the urge to fidget with her non-existent glasses in the 'oh-I-so-believe-you' reporter nod she perfected over the years at CatCo. She instead fiddled with the hem of her shirt before fixing it, and giving her best nonchalant shoulder roll as she could give. "Well, that's all I wanted to know. I'll see you-"

"—Wait."

Kara also hated the fact that she froze dead in her tracks.

"We… _are_ becoming friends, aren't we? Or at least getting along?"

Kara wasn't sure what kind of response he was looking for from her. She didn't know why she stopped, _too attentive,_ and maybe everything in her body language _allowed_ for such a question to ever be asked. And the last thing she understood was the sudden rush she felt to her cheeks, the way her hands _burned_ in intensity, the way each of her fingers made her aware of exactly how she was gripping the hand-bar to the stairs out of the locker room. The way her heart suddenly thudded unevenly, her throat was suddenly dry, and her thoughts were unfastened from reality, beyond all control no matter how hard she tried to grapple them, clasp the wisped ends before they were lost into the stratosphere.

"Nope," was what came out of her mouth instead.

And his responding "mm" oddly echoed her own only moments ago.

* * *

She didn't know what the urgent notice was for, but when Kara's phone vibrated in the unique pattern against her thigh, she gave a half-grin of apology to Eve before ducking out. The whole lactose-intolerant thing was beginning to lose its luster, Kara thought on her way to the DEO, maybe she needed to change it up. Celiac? Gluten intolerance? Kara grimaced. Neither seemed appropriate, and frankly she didn't want to trivialize those who had such difficulties in the first place.

But the thoughts all but vanished as it was Winn who greeted her as Kara landed. "That never stops being cool," he said quickly, as an aside, but Kara merely caught his elbow.

"You're not training Mon El?"

It had been two weeks since she'd first found out about him and Winn's "arrangement", and he was still being detained – for at least another month, or so Alex had told her.

"Not yet and are you _allowing_ it?"

"Absolutely not," Kara responded through her teeth, though truthfully she couldn't quite muster the usual gusto in her response. Thankfully, Winn wasn't as receptive as Mon El had proven to be. The sudden flare in her hand had Kara on alert, and she found her gaze darting from cubicle to cubicle, from monitor to monitor, window to window, as if almost anticipating the unusual way his grey gaze would suddenly capture hers.

And she also barely found herself listening to what Winn was saying. "Sorry, what?" Kara mustered, all too aware (and painfully so) that she missed her cue to respond by half a beat.

Winn grimaced. "For all the times you remind me, very mortifyingly by the way, that you have superhearing..." he let the thought dangle for what Kara supposed was dramatic effect, but when she affixed her gaze back into his, he merely swallowed through a sigh.

"We think we found the planet of origin."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "But the order wasn't someone from here?"

Winn cocked his head to the side. "What we know from the _Tro'ork_ is that they have a top down system. Like a hive mind of sorts – and it all leads to their home planet. Theoretically."

Kara willed her brain away from the soulmate alien problem in one hand, and more towards the _tried to rip her brain apart_ alien problem she had in, in many ways, the other. "Jon mentioned that there's 5 of them on this planet, though."

"Perhaps they've disconnected from the Hive?" Winn offered with half a shrug. "Who knows - of course this is all hypothetical – but this this is their defining system. However, J'onn said he was working on his own. But it's a start." A few keystrokes and flourishes later, Kara found herself staring at a diagram of what she could barely identify as the Aysur System. A couple quick movements suddenly had the screen zooming in to one of the orbiting planets.

"Is that…" Kara dug through the recesses of her brain, trying to recall the brief introduction to this sector of the Milky Way. "Dronen?"

" _Dranen_. But close. And not relevant," Winn said in a very deliberate offhanded manner, and Kara couldn't help but to pout. Of course Winn would take the opportunity to gloat. "What we're more concerned with, is its moon."

"Aha!" Kara said quickly, and as smugly as she could muster, before he could continue. "You said home _planet._ "

Winn's ears flared red. "You still got the name wrong – anyways it's _not relevant_ \- this is, well, moon number 23."

All the joy Kara felt at showing Winn up dissipated back into seriousness. "Out of?"

"Forty four. Yeah," Winn said as Kara blinked, trying to digest that information. "It's called Arvuna. And it's _cold._ " Two more zoom ins later, and one of the specks that had outlined Dranen enlarged to fill the screen and revealed itself to be, at least in this view, as large as the planet it orbited. "We did some testing, set up the DPort to link to it to get some initial tests—"

"—D-Port?" Kara inquired.

"Dimensional Port – kind of a misnomer, actually, as we're not really traversing dimensions so much as its more like jumping through space at light speeds, kind of like a Mass Relay-"

" _Winn."_

The man threw his hands up. "Sorry sorry, I had to make _something_ to get recognized into the DEO's main office—"

Kara sighed. "So you built this?"

Winn's lips quirked into a smirk as he cracked his neck in both directions. "Even the underpaid IT guy has some tricks up his sleeve."

Kara sighed again. "Keep going."

Winn swallowed and swivelled his chair back around. "So we did some diagnostics. As we expected – it's quite cold. Not unbearable for _you_ , I'd suspect, but definitely not the most comfy for the homosapiens." Winn rolled his shoulders. "As we went over before, Tro'ork are essentially the same humanoid build, so you'll probably find it familiar. I'd assume lifestyle is the same."

"Right," Kara said, nodding. "So when are we going?"

"Going?" Winn repeated, just a beat behind. Kara paused before clearing her throat.

"Is that not why you called me?"

Winn stared for a moment before a small, incredulous smile spread across thin lips. "Oh, my bad – I just wanted to show you this. For some answers. There's no need to go – _go, go_ – this instant, I mean we barely have it set up to relay back, and there's no telling where the order came from."

"Oh." It wasn't as if she was necessarily excited to go – not that her Kryptonian body often experienced the cold, but she had a feeling that a prolonged chill wasn't her style. If anything, the throbbing of her mark seemed to agree. Still, perhaps she'd been so used to the regularity of her summonings to the DEO resulting in a mission, to be just told that nothing necessarily was coming from the information she was getting from Winn was a bit odd, for the lack of a better sentiment. "So that's it?"

"Well I mean, in essence." Winn shrugged. "So how's CatCo?"

"The same," Kara responded. And as much as she enjoyed engaging in the pleasantries with her best friend, she wasn't exactly sure if she could forgive him for training Mon El. Speaking of which, as if the thought of him made it so the throbbing ceased being something she could ignore any longer. "Sorry, where's Mon El?"

Winn's half-enthusiastic smile stayed on his lips, though Kara could easily tell it shifted from genuine to almost a bit nervous. "Um, still here in the DEO. Although I guess you'd know if otherwise. Probably downstairs, I dunno. Can't you play, like, hot and cold with it?"

"With my Mark?" Kara grimaced. "Yeah, in a weird, stalker-y way."

Winn raised his hands again. "I didn't mean to imply. I actually like the guy. He's not creepy."

"No," Kara admitted. "But he is… surprisingly friendly."

Winn sighed before rolling his chair closer to her. "You know, I'm telling you this as your best friend, who has seen you _be_ with other people before – and now that I know you have the Mark, and – well, he honestly just wants you two to get along. Like, not need to be dating or anything that might be a weird, Daxamite thing to do; he just genuinely wants to see eye to eye with you."

"We do," Kara said immediately, but it was his disbelieving look, and that perfect tilt in his head that Kara knew too well that gave her away. "We do _now_. Kind of."

Though the classic Winn-head tilt didn't exactly straighten all the way, his eyes did soften. "I'd like to put more faith in my judgement that he's a good person."

"You're training him… to potentially be a _superhero_."

"I'm also – _cautiously –_ optimistic," Winn admitted. He gave a smile. "Thanks Kara. I also know you're trying."

 _Apparently not enough,_ Kara thought. "Well, since you've called me here anyways, I'm gonna go check if our not-superhero-acquaintance isn't using my punching bag, which _you_ are, by the way, _not_ sanctioned to lend out, or whatever." And Kara ignored Winn's exaggerated gasp of indignation.

* * *

She had just made it down the stairs before a hand snatched her back into a hallway and another covered her mouth. Kara froze up instinctively and considered biting down, but she instead twisted her grip up and ground down on the pressure points on the wrist – though not the same effect as she was hoping, it still caused whomever it was to let go promptly.

" _Ow,_ that would've easily broken a human wrist – not very _superhero-y_ of you," Mon El complained, who was shaking out his hand before turning to rub it instead. Kara rolled her eyes.

"Oh don't be silly, I knew it was you," she said, holding up the back of her hand to him to prove it. "Why are _you_ sneaking around anyways?"

"Practicing to be stealthy, even to superhearing," was his too-easy and matter-of-fact response, without a single hint of any shame present in his voice.

"Right, because that's _not_ part of superhero training," Kara said as she fought to keep her voice completely even.

"Oh no," Mon El said, again in an all-too-serious voice. "More of a life skill, you know."

Kara nodded along. "Well, I'm going to-"

"-Come with me?"

"What?" Kara shook her head. "No, use my punching bag. Winn called me here for-"

A spark of mischief lit in Mon El's grey eyes, which should've been Kara's first warning if she even bothered to let it register. "That planet, or _moon_ , as it were – superhearing, jeez – yeah, I know. I want to see it."

Kara blinked incredulously. "The _planet?_ "

"No, the D-Port." Mon El said matter-of-factily. "If it can connect to any planet… well, I'd like to take a look, at least. And before you try to scamper off, you're an accomplice now."

Kara, who was, in fact, about to try to scamper off, couldn't even get another word out before his hand once against clamped around her wrist – her Mark _seared_ at the contact – before dragging her down the hallway. "What – how am I an _accomplice –_ how do you know where you're going?"

"Winn showed me. He's incredibly proud of it, you see." They turned to an unmarked door.

"He _just_ said you weren't creepy – remember? You probably _heard_ it _._ " Kara said under his breath as Mon El let go of her and clasped the door handle. "And it's probably locked—"

Mon El gave it a hard twist and, rather easily, the door swung open. Kara's words stuck in her throat, as Mon El spoke instead. "I was expecting to have to force it. And I'm not creeping. _We_ are _snooping_."

"I'm not –" but before she could say another word, he once again grabbed her wrist – the Mark burned again – and she was, notably, yanked into the room. She couldn't help it; she was curious too, but it didn't stop the sense of dread she felt as they Mon El closed the door behind them. It was momentarily pitch black, save for the ominous few blue lights here and there that barely illuminated anything so much as bring attention to itself, before Mon El must have flipped a light switch, as she was suddenly looking at a larger, garage-like space, but with a notable machine in the middle.

"Woah."

Mon El whistled lowly behind her, though she heard his footsteps above all. "Yeah, I was impressed last time too." And before she knew what he was doing, Mon El sauntered closer to the machine.

"I don't think you should touch it," she said immediately – a knee jerk reaction.

"Relax, your Kryptonian is showing," Mon El teased – and to her surprise, Kara almost felt a good natured laugh slip past her judgement. Instead, she watched with lingering caution as the Daxamite sauntered up to the machine. "Winn showed me how to use it a bit. This button and –" a hologram suddenly sprouted in front of their eyes, not unlike the holograms from the Fortress of Solitude, though instead of a person, it was merely a floating sphere.

"That's Arvuna," Kara murmured, recalling what Winn had said about taking some samples from the planet in their previous conversation. As if in response to her words, the hologram hung lazily in front, beginning a lackidaisal spin.

"Right. I think there's a button to change the portal's trajectory." Mon El's voice was somewhat unfocused as the planet suddenly zoomed out, then zoomed out again – and now the hologram was of Dranen instead. Kara could almost count out the fourty three other speckles that were its other moons.

And then the planet zoomed out – and zoomed out once more. "I wouldn't if I were you," Kara said, but it was really just her voice. She was, if she were honest, a little transfixed with the swirling stars as Mon El zoomed out to the cluster.

"No," the Daxamite in question said, " _I got this_ , …. I think. Honestly, why couldn't he install a _Search by_ function?"

"Why, are you looking for something?" Kara asked, though her mind was invested in _not_ getting too interested in what was happening before her eyes.

"Nothing in particular, just curious…." The hologram zoomed out again – this time, it was simply a swirling mass of twinkles and white dots, but nothing indiscernible.

"I think you should turn it off." _For her own sake,_ Kara thought. Her fingers were itching to splay onto the interface, to mess around and look at the planet in ways she hadn't since her childhood. Memories of seeing the galaxy before her eyes, with Kryptonian technology only somewhat reflected in the Fortress of Solitude, were too tempting, too easy to give into. "Haven't we _snooped_ enough?"

"Possibly, possibly not - Oh."

"Oh _what_?"

Mon El kept pressing the same button, but this time the interface wasn't changing. "I think I may have –"

"—You did _not_ break it." It took two strides for her to reach the console; Kara pushed him aside.

"You can man this?" Mon El asked, surprised, as he regained his footing in a heartbeat. Kara spread her fingers out across the board – typical, arranged in a classic Human way, which was much less convenient than the Kryptonian spreads.

"Well why not? I know how to navigate the Fortress of Solitude." It definitely felt familiar, though, despite the foreign design of the keys and interface, so similar to a keyboard, yet still just as inefficient, she noted.

"I don't think that's the same thing."

"Are you doubting me?" Her fingers flew across the keys but – nothing. The same hazy swirls that was the galaxy continued to project on the screen, twinkles of light like little barbed taunts as she tried again and again.

"No," Mon El's voice said slowly, "but I can't put bets against a machine you're more unfamiliar with. And I can't tell if that was a joke or not. "

"Half of one." Kara lifted her fingers from the interface – but she refused to be defeated. "Winn _is_ my best friend. My bets?" She pointed to the large, blue button. "That probably does something."

"Hm." Mon El followed her vision, before half a smirk came across his face. "Knowing Winn, it definitely does something. Knowing Winn _again_ , seventy five to twenty five says it does something good or bad to us."

"Those odds are scary accurate."

"Well?"

Kara grimaced. "I feel like if we unplugged it, it'd just wound him more."

"Push it?"

"That'd be out of my character," Kara lamented.

"You're already an accomplice."

 _He's a good person. Try to get along with him._

"At least it's not a red one." Kara said, and then she, against all other judgements, pressed down with her right palm, watching as her Mark seemed to _flare_ with her uncharacteristic choice.

And before she knew it, the blue light had enveloped her – enveloped him, too, in the brief quarter of a millisecond she had to register anything, before all her senses were violently ripped from her before she even had a chance to notice.

Instead, she felt like she was falling, flying, being thrown by the strongest foe, being forced into immobilization by nothing but her mind. It was simultaneously painful yet numbing at the same time, like every inch of her skin was bursting from every theoretical seam, yet the mere velocity of her travel was forcing her body to stay as one. She was a ball of sentience, but no sensation – try as she may to move a muscle, wiggle a finger or a toe, but she was unable to do so, not because her limbs didn't exist, but because so much was _happening_ it was as if the signal she had sent from her brain to the appropriate limb merely dissipated, as if the discourse of _whatever_ was happening to her had prematurely gotten rid of the substance on a sparkler that allowed it to function.

The ground finally stopped spiralling, and somehow, in a strange feeling that should've been whiplash but simultaneously wasn't, Kara's insides no longer felt the urge to spill uncontrollably from her body in any way possible.

"Woah," Was Mon El's voice somewhere beside her – shaky, yet somehow stronger than she'd expected.

Kara realized right away that two things were very clear:

One: there was no yellow sun.

Two, and Winn was right: it was _unbearably_ cold.


End file.
